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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. J 






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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 



HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 



THE OLD TESTAMENT. 



BY THE 



REV. G. RAWLINSON, M. A. 

CAMDEN PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT HISTORY, OXFORD. 



WITH ADDITIONS 



Prof. H. B. HACKETT. 



BOSTON: J 
HENRY A. YOUNG AND CO. 

24 CORNHILL,. 

1373. 



^3 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 

Henry A. Young and Co., 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington 



RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE : 

STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 

H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY 



PREFATORY TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 



This volume is one of the recent publica- 
tions of the " Society for Promoting Christian 
Knowledge," so well known for its activity 
in England. It has already passed there 
through repeated editions in the short time 
since its appearance. Rev. George Rawlin- 
son, Camden Professor of Ancient History in 
the University of Oxford, is well known as 
the author of our ablest works relating to the 
old Asiatic monarchies connected with Jewish 
history and occupying so prominent a place 
in the Old Testament. A work like the pres- 
ent, from such a source and so approved 
elsewhere, deserves republication here. The 
book gives us the results (yet duly authenti- 
cated by appropriate references) rather than 
the processes of scholarship, and thus brings 
the important questions with which it deals 
within the reach of all intelligent readers. 



IV PREFATORY. 

During the last fifty years, and especially 
the latter part of this period, we have entered 
on a new epoch of Biblical knowledge and 
illustration. Cities that for ages lay buried 
in ruins have been disinterred. The pyramids 
have broken their long silence and spoken to 
us. The Assyrian inscriptions, which go back 
to the age of the earliest patriarchs, have been 
read, and have yielded up their hidden mean- 
ing. Papyri, as old as the Hebrew Exodus, 
by the aid of modern science have been deci- 
phered. Geographical explorations, more or 
less complete, have been made in all parts of 
the Holy Land, enabling us to judge of the 
accuracy with which the sacred writers speak 
of the relative situation of cities and villages, 
and of the scenery and agricultural or nomadic 
adaptations of this singular country, so diver- 
sified in its aspects and characteristics. 

It is the object of Professor Rawlinson's 
" Historical Illustrations of the Old Testa- 
ment," to state to us within a brief compass 
the results of this cross-questioning of such 
witnesses " from the dead," and show us how 
fully within the limits of such a comparison 



PREFATORY . V 

their testimony supports the truthfulness and 
credibility of the Old Testament records. 

It is hoped that the few additions which 
the Editor has made in the body of the work 
and in the Appendices will be found to har- 
monize with the author's design, and may 
prove acceptable to the reader. These addi- 
tions are distinguished from the original text 
by brackets, or the writer's initial. With that 
exception this edition is a scrupulous reprint 
of the English work, both in form and con- 
tents. 

H. B. H. 

Rochester Theological Seminary, May, 1873. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAOX 
INTRODUCTORY 1 

CHAPTER II. 

Genesis . . 7 

Traditions of Paradise — of the Fall — the Serpent — of 
primeval longevity — of the early invention of the Arts 
— of the Flood — testimony of the Mahabharata — 
American traditions. — Conclusions of modern eth- 
nology anticipated by Gen. x. — Traditions of Tower of 
Babel and Confusion of Tongues. — Proof of early 
Cushite kingdom in Babylonia. — Relations of Assyria 
to Babylonia. — Condition of Egypt in the time of Abra- 
ham. — Power of Elam and name of Chedor-laomer. — 
Accurate description of Egypt in the later chapters of 
Genesis. — Supposed "mistakes" of the writer exam- 
ined. 

CHAPTER III. 

Exodus to Deuteronomy . . 56 

Profane accounts of the Exodus — Manetho's version. — 
Account of Chaeremon. — Agreement of these ac- 
counts with Scripture. — Accounts of Hecataeus of Ab- 
dera, and of Tacitus. — The differences and inaccuracies 
of these various accounts explained. — Egyptian ver- 
sions of the passage of the Red Sea. — Egyptian monu- 
ments illustrate the oppression suffered by the Israelites 
in Egypt, and confirm the general picture of Egyptian 
customs in Exodus. — Hebrew art at the time of the 
Exodus such as might have been learnt in Egypt. — 
Historical illustration of the sojourn in the Wilderness 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

not possible. — The chief difficulty connected with it 
considered. — Testimony of F. W. Holland and others. 

— Colenso's objections. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Joshua to Samuel, 88 

Geography of the book of Joshua. — Testimony of Rit- 
ter. — Saul's last battle-field. — Isolation of the He- 
brews after the Exodus prevents much historical illus- 
tration. — Negative accord of their records with the 
Egyptian and Assyrian. — Tradition of Joshua's war 
with the Canaanites preserved in North Africa. — 
David's wars confirmed by Nicolas of Damascus and 
Eupolemon. — Early preeminence of Sidon confirmed. 

— Power of Hittites confirmed. — Philistine power con- 
firmed. — Manners and customs depicted confirmed or 
probable. 

CHAPTER V. 
Kings and Chronicles ...... 104 

Empire of Solomon has numerous Oriental parallels. — 1. 
In its sudden rise and short duration — 2. In its charac- 
ter. — Solomon's reign and relations with Hiram attested 
by Dius. — Discovery at Jerusalem. — Other points 
attested by the Tyrian histories. — Illustration of his 
reign from the parallel history of Egypt scanty. — Date 
of Empire harmonizes with facts of Assyrian and 
Egyptian history. — Picture drawn of Phoenicians con- 
firmed by profane writers. — Art of Solomon resembles 
that of Assyria. — Shishak's expedition against Reho- 
boam confirmed by an Egyptian inscription. — Zerah's 
expedition against Asa. — Greatness of Omri confirmed 
by the Assyrian inscriptions, and also by the " Moabite 
Stone." — Ahab mentioned on the Black Obelisk and 
on the Moabite Stone. — His reign illustrated by the 
Tyrian histories. — The Moabite Stone confirms the 
revolt of Moab from Ahaziah. — Hazael and Jehu men- 
tioned on the Black Obelisk. — Assyrian monuments 
agree with Scripture as to the general condition of Syria, 
b. c. 900-800. — Depression of Assyria, about b. c. 
800-750, accords with increase of Jewish power at that 
time. — Silence of the Assyrian records with respect 



CONTENTS. IX 

to Pul. — Testimony of Berosus, and probable position 
of this king. — Abundant illustration of Tiglath-pileser's 
Syrian wars in the Assyrian records. — Slight chrono- 
logical difficulty. — Menander's notice of Shalmaneser's 
Syrian wars. — Assyrian and Egyptian notices of " So, 
king of Egypt." — Assyrian account of the fall of Sa- 
maria. — Sargon's records confirm Isaiah xx. and 2 
Kings xvii. 6. — Sennacherib's first expedition against 
Hezekiah described fully in his annals, but no account 
given of his second expedition. — Distorted account of 
the latter in Herodotus. — Assyrian records imply the 
murder of Sennacherib by his sons. — Tirhakah and 
Merodach-Baladan known to us from monuments of the 
period. — Manasseh's visit to Babylon accords with 
Esarhaddon's residence there. — Josiah's greatness 
harmonizes with the parallel decline and fall of Assyr- 
ria. — Necho's Syrian conquests and their loss con- 
firmed by Herodotus and Berosus. — Nebuchadnezzar's 
conquest of Jerusalem confirmed by Berosus. — Wide 
extent of the illustrations here brought together, and 
insignificance of the apparent discrepancies. — Further 
illustration of the period from- the accord of Scripture 
with profane history in respect of manners and customs. 

CHAPTER VI. 
Daniel 166 

Historical character of the book of Daniel. — Sketch of 
the history related in it. — Chronological difficulties of 
the early chapters cleared by a passage of Berosus. — ■ 
Confirmations of the narrative from the same passage. — 
General character of Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom, as 
represented by Daniel, agrees with profane history and 
with the Babylonian remains. — Supposed "historical 
inaccuracies" of Daniel examined. — Mysterious mal- 
ady of Nebuchadnezzer hinted at by a profane writer. — 
Difficulties formerly felt with respect to the name and 
fate of Belshazzar removed by a recently-discovered 
Babylonian inscription. — Account of the capture of 
Babylon confirmed by profane historians. — Difficulties 
connected with "Darius the Mede," and their possible 
solution. — Daniel's narrative of events under this king 



X CONTENTS. 

accords with profane accounts of Medo-Persic ideas and 
practices. — Harmony between Daniel's notes of time 
and profane chronology. 

CHAPTER VII. 

Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther 191 

Character of the history in these books, and points which 
admit of profane illustration. — Succession of the Per- 
sian kings correctly given. — The character and actions 
of Cyrus agree with profane accounts of him. — The 
discovery of his decree at Ecbatana agrees with his habit 
of residing there. — Reversal of the decree of Cyrus by 
the next king but one agrees with his religious posi- 
tion. — Relations of Darius with the Jews, and terms of 
his edict, suitable to his character and circumstances. — 
Portrait of Xerxes in the book of Esther agrees with 
profane accounts of him. — Character of Artaxerxes in 
Scripture agrees with that given by Plutarch and Diod- 
orus. — The organization of the Persian court and 
kingdom, as depicted in Ezra, Esther, and Nehemiah, 
in close accordance with profane accounts and with the 
Persian monuments. — Charges brought against the 
book of Esther considered. — Omission of the name of 
God. — Opinions of Stuart, Winer, and others. — Con- 
clusion. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Conclusion 220 

Results of the inquiry: — 1. Very little contradiction 
between the sacred and the profane. — 2. Large amount 
of minute agreement. — Conclusions to be drawn from 
these results. 

APPENDIX. 

1. — Stoky of the Flood 227 

2. — The Moabite Stone 233 



HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

OF THE 

OLD TESTAMENT. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

The Religion of the Bible, unlike almost 
all other religions, has its roots in the region 

Of Fact. Other religioiIS Systems Historic charac- 
.-1-11. ter of Biblical 

are, in the mam, ideal, being the Religion. 
speculations of individual minds, or the grad- 
ual growth of a nation's fanciful thought dur- 
ing years or centuries. The Religion of the 
Bible, though embracing much that is in the 
highest sense ideal, grounds itself upon ac- 
counts, which claim to be historical, of oc- 
currences that are declared to have actually 
taken place upon the earth. That Jesus 
Christ was born under Herod the Great, 
at Bethlehem ; that He came forward as a 
Teacher of religion ; that He preached and 
taught, and performed many " mighty works " 



2 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

in Galilee, Samaria, and Judaea during the 
space of some years ; that He was crucified 
by Pontius Pilate ; that He died and was 
buried ; that He rose again from the dead, 
and ascended before the eyes of his disciples 
into heaven, — these are the most essential 
points, the very gist and marrow of the New 
Testament. And these are all matters of 
simple fact. 1 And, as with the New Testa- 
ment, so, or still more strikingly, with the 
Old. Creation, the Paradisaical state, the 
Fall, the Flood, the Dispersion of Nations, 
the Call of Abraham, the Deliverance out of 
Egypt, the Giving of the Law on Sinai, the 
conquest of Palestine, the establishment of 
David's kingdom, the Dispersion of Israel, 
the Captivity of Judah, the return under Ezra 
and Nehemiah, — all these are of the nature 
of actual events, objective facts occurring at 

1 * We are not dependent, therefore, on Christian writers and 
apologists for our knowledge of the main facts of Christ's life 
(his birth, claims, teachings, reputed miracles, crucifixion), but 
learn them from contemporary heathen and Jewish writers 
(Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny, Suetonius), just as we learn any 
other historical facts. Yet, on the other hand, we are not to 
regard the testimony of such heathen witnesses as more satisfac- 
tor}- than that of the early Christian martyrs who renounced 
heathenism and embraced the Gospel (Clement, Ignatius, Poly- 
carp, Justin Martyr) ; for that is to treat them as less worthy of 
credence, just because they found the Christian evidences so 
strong as to be compelled to act upon them at the expense of all 
possible worldly advantages. Some writers on the Christian 
evidences really fall into that inconsistency. — H. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 3 

definite times and in definite places, condi- 
tioned, like other facts, perceptible to sense, 
and fitted to be the subject of historic rec- 
ord. 

It is this feature of our religion, so markedly 
characteristic of it, that brings it into con- 
tact with historic science, and ren- Hence, a con- 
clers it at once liable to be tested theBibieand 

, , , -. r* i • • i profane his- 

by the laws and canons ot historical tory. 
criticism, and capable of receiving illustration 
from historic sources. The Scriptural writers, 
as a general rule, deal, not Avith doctrines, but 
with occurrences. The very Prophetic Books 
have a historic form, and bristle with dates 
and with the names of contemporary person- 
ages. The revelation given to us may, as 
Butler observes, 1 " be considered as wholly 
historical." It " contains a kind of abridg- 
ment of the history of the world." Though 
mainly concerned with the religious condition 
of mankind, it embraces also "an account of 
the political state of things," giving us " a 
continual thread of history " of the length of 
several thousand years. These circumstances 
permit a comparison between Scriptural and 
profane history ; between the sacred records 
which are inseparably intertwined with our 
religion, and the accumulated stores of merely 

i Anabgij, part ii. c. vii. pp. 310, 311 (Oxford ed. of 1833). 



4 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

human knowledge concerning the world's 
past, which have anyhow come into our pos- 
session. It will be the object of the present 
essay to make this comparison, so far as the 
Scriptures of the Old Testament are con- 
scope of the cerned. The " thread of history " 
present work. contained in t h e earlier portion of 

our sacred volume will be placed side by side 
with that account of human affairs which 
purely secular history furnishes. The various 
points of contact between the two will be 
noted, and their agreement, or, if so be, their 
disagreement, pointed out. It is not intended 
to conceal or make light of difficulties ; but it 
is believed that they Avill be found to be in- 
considerable. In general it is thought that 
the harmony between the sacred and the pro- 
fane will be striking, and that it will be espe- 
cially evident that the most authentic sources 
of profane history are those which throw the 
clearest and brightest light on the sacred nar- 
rative. The more exact the knoAvledge that 
we obtain, by discovery or critical research, 
of the remote past, the closer the agreement 
that we find between profane and Biblical 
history. 

And here a remark of Butler's may well be 
pressed on the attention of the reader. But- 
ler notes how the historical character of our 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 5 

sacred records, and especially the great length 
of time which they cover, and the The oims of 
great extent and variety of the sub- ^nc^Sa 
jects whereof they treat, " gives the j^J le h[s ^ 
largest scope for criticism," and, ^toS^ad- 
if the narrative be not true, should versary - 
render the task of confutation easy. 1 It is 
indeed inconceivable, that if the Biblical his- 
tory, covering the space of time which it 
does, and dealing as it does with the affairs 
of most of the great nations of antiquity, 
were a fictitious narrative, modern histor- 
ical science, with its searching methods and 
its exact and extended knowledge of the past, 
should not have, long ere this, demonstrated 
the fact, and completely overthrown the his- 
torical authority of the sacred volume. But 
it is not even pretended that this has been 
done. Attacks are made on this or that por- 
tion of the record, on names and numbers 
and minute expressions which it is contended 
are inaccurate ; but no one pretends to show, 
as it should be easy to show, if the history 
is not true, that it is irreconcilably at variance 
with the course of mundane events as known 
to us from other sources. The progress of 
our knowledge, has indeed tended very re- 
markably of late years in the opposite direc- 

1 Analogy, part ii. e. vii. p. 312. 



6 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

tion. As the stores of antique lore have been 
unlocked, and our acquaintance with the an- 
cient world has increased in extent, precision, 
and accuracy, it has become more and more 
apparent that such a confutation of the his- 
torical character of the sacred records is im- 
possible. Each year adds something to the 
force of the opposite arguments. Discoveries, 
like that of the Moabite Stone, 1 are made in 
the most unexpected quarters. If scientific 
difficulties increase upon us, historical difficul- 
ties certainly lessen. Thus, although the 
onus probandi should be on our adversaries, 
who should be able with so much ease to 
prove our Books historically untrue, if they 
were untrue, yet the Christian Apologist may 
now, without presumption, enter the field 
himself, and apply himself to the task of con- 
firming faith, or even dispelling doubt, by the 
exhibition of a harmony which seems to have 
reached a point that entitles it to take its 
place among the Evidences of Religion. 

1 * For the history of this Moabite Stone (several times men- 
tioned in this volume) and its value as a historical witness, see 
Appendix No. 2. — H. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 



CHAPTER II. 

GENESIS. 

HlSTOEY proper cannot rightly be regarded 
as going back to the first origin of the human 
race. Of the various acts of Crea- Absence of 

. . (, strictly his- 

tion which culminated m the torma- toricai illustra- 
tions for the 
tion of man, there could be no hu- earliest times. 

man witnesses ; and thus no historical illustra- 
tion of the first chapter of Genesis is possible. 
At the utmost, such illustration must com- 
mence after the human race has been cre- 
ated. Even then for a considerable space of 
time history proper is silent. The art of 
embodying articulate speech in written words 
appears not to have been invented by man 
until he had lived for many centuries upon the 
earth ; and the history of mankind was, con- 
sequently, for ages unrecorded, passing down 
from generation to generation by oral tra- 
dition, and, as alwa} 7 s happens in such a 
case, undergoing change in the process, here 
being slightly modified, there almost wholly 
transformed, in some cases fading entirely 
away, and being replaced by fables, the prod- 



8 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

uct of the imagination. The earliest pro- 
fane records that deserve the name of history 
want partly do not reach back within two thou- 
traditions. sand years 1 of the time at which 
the sacred narrative commences ; and, con- 
sequently, it is impossible either to test or to 
illustrate that narrative, in its earlier portion, 
by a comparison with records which for that 
period are not forthcoming. The utmost that 
can be done is to see whether among the 
traditions of different human races which be- 
long to a time anterior to history proper, 
there are not some which point to the same 
facts as those recorded in Scripture, and of 
whose harmony with the Hebrew accounts 
no other origin can be reasonably assigned 
than the common memory of actual facts, wit- 
nessed by the ancestors of the different races. 
The first great fact in the history of man- 
kind, as placed before us in Genesis, is the 
primitive innocence of our race, and its exist- 
ence in a delightful region, the abode of purity 
and happiness, for a certain space after its 
wide-spread creation. A remembrance of this 

tradition of . 

Paradise. blisslul condition seems to have been 

1 This number must be taken merely as a minimum. The 
years assigned in Scripture to the patriarchs, reckoned according 
to the lowest account, give 2,023 years between the Creation and 
the call of Abraham. Profane history does not commence till 
about that time. The LXX. enlarge the interval to 3,279 years; 
and it may have been still longer. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 9 

retained among a large number of peoples. 
The Greeks told of a " golden age," when 
men lived the life of the gods, a life free from 
care, and without labor or sorrow. Old age 
Avas unknown ; the body never lost its vigor ; 
existence was a perpetual feast, without a 
taint of evil. The «arth. brought forth spon- 
taneously all things that were good in pro- 
fuse abundance ; peace reigned, and men 
pursued their several employments without 
quarrel. Their happy life was ended by a 
death which had no pain, but fell upon them 
like a gentle sleep. 1 In the Zendavesta, 
Yima, the first Iranic king, lives in a secluded 
spot, where he and his people enjoy uninter- 
rupted happiness. Neither sin, nor folly, nor 
violence, nor poverty, nor deformity have en- 
trance into the region ; nor does the Evil 
Spirit for a while set foot there. Amid odor- 
iferous trees and golden pillars dwells the 
beautiful race, pasturing their abundant cat- 
tle on the fertile earth, and feeding on an 
ambrosial food which never fails them. 2 In 
the Chinese books we read, that " during 
the period of the first heaven, the whole crea- 
tion enjoyed a state of happiness : everything 

i Hes'od, Op. et D. 11. 109-119. 

2 Vendidid, Farg. ii. §§ 4-41. (See the Author's Ancient 
Monarchies, vol. ii. p. Ji41, 2d ed.) 



10 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

was beautiful ; everything was good ; all be- 
ings were perfect in their kind. In this happy- 
age, heaven and earth employed their virtues 
jointly to embellish nature. There was no 
jarring in the elements, no inclemency in the 
air ; all things grew without labor, and uni- 
versal fertility prevailed. The active and 
passive virtues conspired together, without 
any effort or opposition, to produce and per- 
fect the universe." 1 The literature of the 
Hindoos tells of a " first age of the world, 
when justice, in the form of a bull, kept her- 
self firm on her four feet ; virtue reigned ; no 
good which mortals possessed was mixed with 
baseness ; and man, free from diseases, saw 
all his wishes accomplished, and attained an 
age of four hundred years." 2 Traces of a 
similar belief are found among the Thibetans, 
the Mongolians, the Cingalese, and others. 
Even our own Teutonic ancestors had a glimpse 
of the truth ; though they substituted for the 
" garden " of Genesis a magnificent drinking- 
hall, glittering with burnished gold, where the 
primeval race enjoyed a life of perpetual fes- 
tivity, quaffing a delicious beverage from 
golden bowls, and interchanging with one an- 
other glad converse and loyal friendship. 3 

1 See Faber's Hurce Mosaicce, p. 146. 

2 Kalisch, Comment on Genesis, p. 64. 3 Edda, Fab. vii. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 11 

The races which thus describe the primi- 
tive state of man have all of them a tradition 
of a Fall. With some the Fall is Tradition of 
more gradual than with others. theFalL 
The Greeks pass by gentle degrees from the 
golden age of primeval man to the iron one, 
which is the actual condition of human kind 
when the first writers lived. The Hindoos, 
similarly, bring man, through a second and a 
third age, into that fourth one, which they 
recognize as existing in their day. But with 
some races the Fall is sudden. In the Edda, 
corruption is suddenly produced by the bland- 
ishments of strange women, who deprive men 
of their pristine integrity and purity. In the 
Thibetan, Mongolian, and Cingalese tradi- 
tions, a similar result is brought about by the 
spontaneous development of a covetous tem- 
per. In the earliest of the Persian books, the 
Fall would seem to be gradual ; 1 but in the 
later writings, which are of an uncertain date, 
a narrative appears which is most strikingly 
in accordance with that of Genesis. The first 
man and the first woman live originally in 
purity and innocence. Perpetual happiness is 
promised to them by Ormazd, if they per- 
severe in their virtue. They dwell in a gar- 
den, wherein there is a tree, on whose fruit 

1 Verulidad, Farg. i. 



12 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

they feed, which gives them life and immor- 
tality. But Ahriman, the Evil Principle, 
envying their felicity, causes another tree 
to spring up in the garden, and sends a 
wicked spirit, who, assuming the form of a 
serpent, persuades them to eat its fruit, and 
this fruit corrupts them. Evil feelings stir in 
their hearts ; Ahriman becomes the object of 
their worship instead of Ormazd ; they fall 
under the power of demons, and become a 
prey to sin and misery. If we could certainly 
assign this narrative to a time anterior to the 
contact of Zoroastrianism with Judaism, it 
would constitute a most remarkable testi- 
mony, and as such it has been usual to adduce 
it. 1 But the fact that it appears only in the 
later books, 2 and the very close resemblance 
which it bears to the account given in Gen- 
esis, render it probable that we have here, 
not a primitive tradition, but an infiltration 
into the Persian system of religious ideas be- 
longing properly to the Hebrews. 

The part taken by the serpent, as Satan's 

1 See Kalisch, Comment, on Genesis, p. 63; and compare 
Bishop Harold Browne in the New Commentary, p. 48. 

* Bishop Browne has there an extended note "On the His- 
torical Character of the Temptation and the Fall." — H. 

2 The account to which Kalisch and Bishop Browne refer is 
contained in the Bundehesht, which belongs at the earliest to the 
first century of our era (Haug, Ueber die Pelilewi Sprache, p 
30). 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 13 

instrument in effecting the fall of man, has 
been regarded by many as the ori- 

- , . , , n t -.The serpent. 

gin or that wide-spread dread and 
abhorrence in which the serpent was held, 
especially in the East, and of that very com- 
mon symbolism by which the same noxious 
creature was made the special emblem of the 
Evil Principle. But, as it may with plausi- 
bility be argued that the instinctive antipathy 
of man to the animal, and its power of doing 
him deadly injury, sufficiently account both 
for the feeling and for the symbolism, the evi- 
dence on the point will not be collected in the 
present Essay. 

Patriarchal longevity presents itself as one 
of the most striking of the facts concerning 
mankind which the early history of Tradition of 

r^ • 1 o primeval 

the Book of Genesis places before longevity. 
us. Objections are brought against it on 
grounds which are called scientific. 1 With 
these the historical illustrator has nothing to 
do ; it is not his place to combat them, though 
he may feel that they cannot have any great 
value, as they failed to convince Haller and 
Buff on. It is his business to inquire how far 
the history or traditions of mankind confirm 
or invalidate the fact in question, and to place 
the result briefly before his readers. Now it 

1 Bunsen, EyypVs Place in Universal History, vol. iv. p. 391. 



14 HISTOEICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

is beyond a doubt that there is a large amount 
of consentient tradition to the effect that the 
life of man was originally far more prolonged 
than it is at present, extending to at least 
several hundreds of years. 1 The Babylonians, 
Egyptians, and Chinese exaggerated these 
hundreds into thousands. The Greeks and 
Romans, with more moderation, limited hu- 
man life within a thousand or eight hundred 
years. The Hindoos still further shortened 
the term. Their books taught that in the 
first age of the world man was free from dis- 
eases, and live ordinarily four hundred years ; ' 
in the second age the term of life was reduced 
from four hundred to three hundred ; in the 
third it became two hundred ; and in the 
fourth and last it was brought down to one 
hundred. So certain did the fact appear to 
the Chinese, that an Emperor who wrote a 
medical work proposed an inquiry into the 
reasons why the ancients attained to so much 
more advanced an age than the moderns. 2 

The early invention of the arts, recorded in 
Gen. iv., is in harmony with the Greek tradi- 

Earlyinven- tio11 ' aCCOrdillg to which Prona- 
tion of the arts, theus, in the infancy of our race, 
not only " stole fire from heaven," but taught 

1 See Aids to Faith, Essay vi. § 5, pp. 278, 279. 

2 Couplet, quoted by Faber, Horce Mosaicce, p. 120. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 15 

men " all the arts, helps, and ornaments of 
life," x especially the working in metals. It 
is in equal agreement with the Babylonian 
legend of Oannes, 2 who, long before the Flood, 
instructed the Chaldasans both in art and in 
science, " so that no grand discovery was ever 
made afterwards." And it receives confirma- 
tion from the fact that both in Egypt and in 
Babylonia the earliest extant remains, which 
go back to a time that cannot be placed long 
after the Flood, show signs of a tolerably ad- 
vanced civilization, and particularly of the 
possession of metallic tools and implements. 

The Flood described by the writer of Gene- 
sis, in his eighth chapter, is now generally 
allowed, even by skeptics, to have Traditions of a 

, , . , . i A j. Deluge among 

been an historical event. A lew an the chief 

. -. t .,, t ,, . races of man- 

persons indeed still speak ol it as a kind. 
myth, and believe " all good critics " to be of 
their opinion ; 3 but when such writers as 
Bunsen and Kalisch maintain the historical 
character of the catastrophe, the Biblical apol- 
ogist may well assume that the point is con- 
ceded. He must not, however, suppose that 
all controversy on the subject is at an end. 
The dispute has merely entered upon a new 

1 Grote, History of Greece, vol. i. p. G8, ed. of 1862. 

2 Berosus, Fr. i. § 1. 

3 Davidson, Introduction to the Old Testament, vol. i. p. 187. 



16 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

phase. The prevalent modern skepticism, 
forced by the weight of traditional evidence 
to allow the reality of the Noachian Deluge, 
makes light of it as a mere partial catastro- 
phe, affecting only one or two races, and so as 
of no great consequence in the history of man- 
kind. It is of the essence of the Biblical nar- 
rative that the Deluge was, so far as the 
human race was concerned, universal, — that 
it destroyed all men then living, except the 
inmates of the ark, and that the present hu- 
man race is wholly descended from those in- 
mates. The testimony of tradition has been 
alleged in support of the view that only some 
races were affected by it ; but an unprejudiced 
consideration of the whole evidence clearly 
shows that the tradition is common to all the 
chief divisions of the human family. That it 
was generally held by the Semites and the 
Indo-Europeans (or Aryans), is granted ; l but 
it is said to have been unknown to the Ha- 
mites, and to the Turanians. Were this true, 
the fact would be remarkable, and would go 
far to prove the assertions that have been 
based upon it. But the alleged fact is really 
the reverse of the truth. The Egyptians, the 
leading representatives of the Hamites, taught, 
" not that there had been no deluge, but that 

1 Bunsen, Egypt, etc., vol. iv. p. 464. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 17 

there had been several. They believed that 
from time to time, in consequence of the an- 
ger of the gods, the earth was visited by a 
terrible catastrophe. The agent of destruc- 
tion was sometimes fire, sometimes water. In 
the conflagrations, all countries were burnt 
up but Egypt, which was protected by the 
Nile ; and in the deluges, all were submerged 
but Egypt, where rain never fell. The last 
catastrophe, they said, had been a deluge," * 
which took place about eight thousand years 
before the visit of Solon to Amasis. It may 
be true that in the recovered literature of 
ancient Egypt no trace appears of the belief 
in question ; but the force of this negative 
argument is far too slight to invalidate the 
positive testimony of Plato. 2 

[* The history of a general inundation, as 
related in the Mahabharata and other In- 
dian Asiatic writings, affords an unmistakable 
agreement with the Mosaic writings. In the 
translation of a part of that work out of the 
Sanskrit, the eminent orientalist, Prof. Bopp, 
states the substance of the story as follows : 
" The Lord of creatures, Brahma, the highest 

1 See Plato, Timceus, p. 21; and compare Aids to Faith, 
Essay vi. § 2, pp. 265, 266. 

2 * For additional reasons for thinking that the Egyptians had 
a knowledge of Noah's Flood, see note of Mr. Burgess in the 
Amer. ed. of Smith's Bible Diet. vol. i. p. 2187. — H. 



18 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

existence, appeared to a pious king named 
Manus, and announced to him the impending 
deluge, which was to destory everything. He 
commanded him to build a ship and in the 
time of danger to enter it, and to take with 
him seeds of all kinds, as they would be named 
to him, separated from one another. Manus 
obeyed the command of the deity, and brought 
all seeds into the ship, into which he himself 
then entered. But the ship, guided by the 
deity, swam many years upon the sea, until 
it finally settled upon the highest summit of 
the mountain Himawan (Himalaya), when it 
was bound fast at the command of the deity. 
This summit is therefore still named, at this 
day, Nau-Bandhanann (i. e. ship-binding) ; 
and from Manus descends the present race of 
mankind." *] 

With respect to the Turanians, the evidence 
of belief in a general deluge is abundant. In 
the Chinese traditions, " Fa-he, the reputed 
founder of Chinese civilization, is represented 
as escaping from the waters of a deluge ; and 
he reappears as the first man at the production 
of a renovated world, attended by his wife, 
three sons, and three daughters." 2 The abo- 
riginal races of America, now generally al- 

1 * Translated by the writer from Auberlen's Die Gbttliche 
Offenbarung in the Blbl. Sacra, xxii. p. 422 f . — H. 

2 Hardwick, Christ and other Masters, part iii. p. 16. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 19 

lowed to be Turanians, held a deluge almost 
universally. The Mexicans had paintings, 
representing the event, which showed a man 
and woman in a boat, or* on a raft, a mountain 
rising above the waters, and a dove delivering 
the gift of language to the children of the 
saved pair. 1 The Cherokee Indians had a 
legend of the destruction of mankind by a 
deluge, and of the preservation of a single 
family in a boat, to the construction of which 
they had been incited by a dog. 2 In the 
islands of the Pacific, when first discovered by 
Europeans, a similar belief prevailed. " Tra- 
ditions of the Deluge," says Mr. Ellis, " have 
been found to exist among the natives of the 
South Sea Islands, from the earliest periods 
of their history. The principal facts are the 
same in the traditions prevailing among the 
inhabitants of the different groups, although 
they differ in several minor particulars. In 
one group the accounts stated that Taarsa, the 
principal god according to their mythology, 
being angry with men on account of their dis- 
obedience to his will, overturned the world 
into the sea, when the earth sunk in the wa- 
ters, excepting a few projecting points, which, 
remaining above its surface, constituted the 

1 Prescott, History of Mexico, vol. iii. pp. 309, 310. 

2 Hardwick, part iii. pp. 163, 164. 



20 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

present cluster of islands. The memorial pre- 
served by the inhabitants of Eimeo states, 
that, after the inundation of the land, when 
the water subsided, a man landed from a canoe 
near Tiatarpua, in their island, and erected an 
altar in honor of his god. The tradition 
which prevails in the Leeward Islands is in- 
timately connected with the island of Raiatea." 
Here the story was that a fisherman disturbed 
the sea-god with his hooks, whereupon the 
god determined to destroy mankind. The 
fisherman, however, obtained mercy, and was 
directed to take refuge in a certain small 
islet, whither he betook himself with his wife, 
child, one friend, and specimens of all the 
domestic animals. The sea then rose and sub- 
merged all the other islands, destroying all 
the inhabitants. But the fisherman and his 
companions were unharmed, and afterwards 
removing from their islet to Raiatea, became 
the progenitors of the present people. 1 Again, 
the Fiji islanders have a very clear and dis- 
tinct tradition of a deluge, from which one 
family only, eight in number, was saved in a 
canoe. 2 

[* Such traditions of a flood, says Liicken, 
" are, if possible, more common in the New 

1 Ellis, Polynesian Researches, vol. ii. pp. 57-59. 

2 Hardwick, part iii. p. 185. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 21 

World than in the Old. The form in which 
the natives relate them agrees so strikingly 
with the traits of the Bible history, that we 
cannot blame the astonished Spaniards, the 
first European discoverers, if they were ready 
to believe, on account of these and similar tra- 
ditions, that the Apostle Thomas must have 
preached Christianity there. Between the 
banks of the Cassiquiare and the Orinoco, 
hieroglyphic figures are often seen at great 
heights, on rocky cliffs, which could be acces- 
sible only by constructing very lofty scaffolds. 
When the natives are asked how these figures 
could be sculptured, they answer with a smile, 
as if relating a fact of which a white man only 
could be ignorant, that at the period of the 
great waters, their fathers went to that height 
in boats." : ] 

To conclude, therefore, that the Deluge, in 
respect of mankind, was partial, because some 
of the great divisions of the human family had 
no tradition on the subject, is to draw a con- 
clusion directly in the teeth of the evidence. 
The evidence shows a consentient belief — a 
belief which has all the appearance of being 
original and not derived — among members of 
ALL the great races into which ethnologists 

1 * See the writer's Translation from Auberlen in Blbl. Sacra, 
xxii. p. 422. The article contains other similar testimonies. — H. 



22 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

have divided mankind. Among the Semites, 
the Babylonians, and the Hebrews — among 
the Hamites, the Egyptians — among the 
Aryans, the Indians, the Armenians, the 
Phrygians, the Lithuanians, the Goths, the 
Celts, and the Greeks — among the Tura- 
nians, the Chinese, the Mexicans, the Red In- 
dians, and the Polynesian islanders, held the 
belief, which has thus the character of a uni- 
versal tradition — a tradition of which but one 
rational account can be given, namely, that it 
embodies the recollection of a fact in which 
all mankind was concerned. 

It is remarkably confirmatory of the Biblical 
narrative to find that it unites details, scat- 
tered up and down the various traditional ac- 
counts, but nowhere else found in combination. 
It begins with the warning, which we find also 
in the Babylonian, the Hindoo, and the Cher- 
okee Indian versions. It comprises the care for 
animals, which is a feature of the Babylonian, 
the Indian and of one of the Polynesian stories. 
It reckons the saved as eight, as do the Fiji 
and Chinese traditions ; as in the Chinese 
story, these eight are a man, his wife, his three 
sons, and three daughters-in-law (or daugh- 
ters). In assigning a prominent part to birds 
in the experiments made before quitting the 
ark, it accords (once more) especially with 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 23 

the tradition of the Babylonians. In its men- 
tion of the dove, it possesses a feature pre- 
served also by the Greeks and by the Mexi- 
cans. The olive-branch it has in common with 
the Phrygian legend, as appears from the fa- 
mous medal struck at Apamea Cibotus. 1 Fi- 
nally, in its record of the building of an altar 
(Gen. viii. 20), immediately after the saved 
quitted the ark, it has a touch which forms 
equally a portion of the Babylonian and of 
one Polynesian story. 

Altogether, the conclusion seems irresistibly 
forced upon us that the Hebrew is the authen- 
tic narrative, of which the remainder are more 
or less corrupted versions. It is impossible to 
derive the Hebrew account from any of the 
other stories, while it is quite possible to de> 
rive all of them from it. Suppose the Deluge 
a fact, and suppose its details to have been such 
as the author of Genesis declares them to have 
been, then the wide-spread generally accord- 
ant, but in part divergent, tradition is exactly 
what might have been anticipated under the 
circumstances. No other theory gives even a 
plausible explanation of the phenomena. 2 

1 A representation of this medal is given in Smith's Biblical 
Dictionary, vol. ii. p. 572; and vol. iii. p. 2184, Amer. ed. It 
belongs to the time of Septimius Severus, but is a purely heathen, 
not a Christian or Jewish monument. 

2 * Since the publication of this volume a very important con- 



24 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

The narrative of the Flood is followed in the 
Book of Genesis by an account of the repeo- 

conciusions of P lin g of the earth h J the descend- 
modemeth- an t s f Noah, whereof the first 

nology antici- 
pated in the ge- feature which strikes us is the enu- 

nealogy of the 

sons of Noah, meration of the various races under 
three heads — " the sons of Japhet " (Gen. x. 
3) ; " the sons of Ham " (ver. 6) ; and " the 
sons of Shem " (ver. 22). It is not distinctly 
declared that the three groups were separated 
by ethnic differences ; but, given the existence 
of ethnic differences, it is natural to conclude 
that the nations declared to be cognate are 
those between which there was most resem- 
blance, and consequently that the document 
may be regarded as an ethnological arrange- 
ment of mankind under three heads. Now 
here it is at once noteworthy, that modern 
ethnological science, having set itself by a 
careful analysis of facts to establish a classifi- 
cation of races, has similarly formed a triple 
division of mankind, and speaks of all races as 
either Semitic, Aryan, or Turanian (Allophy- 
lian). 1 Moreover, when we examine the 

firmation of the Mosaic account of the Deluge has been brought 
to light by Mr. George Smith, of the British Museum, London. 
It deserves a fuller notice than can be given to it in a note here. 
See Appendix No. 1, at the end of the book, for a summarj' of 
the contents of this new Assyrian inscription. — H. 

1 SeePrichard, Physical History of Mankind; Bunsen, Phi- 
losophy of Universal History ; Max Midler, Languages of the 
Seat of War, etc. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 25 

groups which the author of the tenth chapter 
of Genesis has thrown together, we find, to 
say the least, a most remarkable agreement 
between the actual arrangement which he has 
made, and the conclusions to which ethnolog- 
ical inquirers have come from a consideration 
of the facts of human language and physical 
type. Setting aside the cases where the eth- 
nic names employed are of doubtful applica- 
tion, it cannot reasonably be questioned that 
the author has in his account of the sons of 
Japhet, classified together the Cymry or Celts 
(Gomer), the Medes (Madai), and the Ionians 
or Greeks (Javan), thereby anticipating what 
has become known in modern times as " the 
Indo-European theory," or the essential unity 
of the Aryan (Asiatic) race with the principal 
races of Europe, indicated by the Celts and the 
Ionians. Nor can it be doubted that he has 
thrown together, under the one head of " chil- 
dren of Shem," the Assyrians (Asshur), the 
Syrians (Aram), the Hebrews (Eber), and 
the Joktanian Arabs (Joktan), four of the 
principal races which modern ethnology recog- 
nizes under the heading of " Semitic." Again, 
under the heading of " sons of Ham," the au- 
thor has arranged " Cush," i. e. the Ethio- 
pians ; " Mizraim," the people of Egypt ; 
" Sheba and Dedan," or certain of the south- 



26 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

em Arabs ; and " Nimrod, 1 ' or the ancient 
, people of Babylon ; four races between which 
the latest linguistic researches have estab- 
lished a close affinity. Beyond a question, the 
tendency of modern ethnological inquiry has 
been to establish the accuracy of the document 
called in Genesis the Toldoth Beni Noah, or 
" Genealogy of the sons of Noah " (chap, x.), 1 
and to create a feeling among scientific ethnol- 
ogists that it is a record of the very highest 
value ; one which, if it can be rightly inter- 
preted, may be thoroughly trusted, and which 
is, as one of them has said, " the most authen- 
tic record that we possess for the affiliation of 
nations." 2 

When the repeopling of the earth by the 
descendants of Noah had reached a certain 
Traditions of point, the Biblical narrative informs 

the Tower of _ , , , 

Babei and con- us that a remarkable event pro- 
tongues, duced their dispersion. The progeny 
of Noah, leaving the district of Ararat, where 
the ark had rested, occupied " the land of 

1 * The celebrated geographer, Dr. Karl Ritter, declared that of 
all the writings of antiquity none are receiving such confirmation 
from the modern researches in geography and ethnography as 
this tenth chapter of Genesis and the works of Herodotus. — H. 

2 Sir H. Rawlinson, in the Journal of the- Asiatic Society, vol. 
xv. p. 230. Compare Kalisch {Comment, on Genesis, p. 194), who 
speaks of " this unparalleled list, the combined result of reflection 
and deep research, and no less valuable as a historical document 
than as a lasting proof of the brilliant capacity of the Hebrew 
mind." 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 27 

Shinar," or the great alluvial plain towards 
the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates. Here 
they resolved to build themselves a city, and a 
tower " whose top should reach to heaven," 
apparently as a centre of unit} 7 . But it was 
the design of Providence that they should 
spread, form numerous nations, and so " re- 
plenish the earth." Accordingly, by miracle, 
their language was confounded, and they left 
off to build the city, and, being scattered 
abroad, fulfilled the intentions of their Maker. 
Of this remarkable circumstance in the his- 
tory of mankind, a traditional remembrance 
seems to have been retained among a certain 
number of nations. In Babylon itself, espe- 
cially, the great city of the land of Shinar, 
there was a belief which is thus expressed by 
those who had studied its records : " At this 
time — not long after the Flood — the an- 
cient race of men were so puffed up with 
their strength and tallness of stature, that 
they began to despise and contemn the gods, 
and labored to erect that very lofty tower 
which is now called Babylon, intending 
thereby to scale heaven. But when the build- 
ing approached the sky, behold, the gods 
called in the aid of the winds, and by their 
help overturned the tower and cast it to the 
ground ! The name of the rum is still called 



28 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

Babel ; because until this time all men had 
used the same speech, but now there was sent 
upon them a confusion of many and divers 
tongues." x It may have been also a recollec- 
tion of the event, though one much dimmed 
and faded, which gave rise to the Greek myth 
of the war between the gods and the giants, 
and the attempt of the latter to scale heaven 
by piling one mountain upon another. 

A further tangible evidence of the con- 
fusion of man's speech in Babylonia, or, at 
Early Babyio- an y rate, a fact which harmonizes 
S^JSKr* completely with the Scriptural 
JJ2?h ufthe statement that Babylonia was the 
country. scene of the confusion, is to be 

found in the character of the language which 
appears on the earliest monuments of the 
country — monuments which reach back to a 
time probably as remote asB. c. 2300, and 
almost certainly anterior to the date of Abra- 
ham. This monumental language is especially 
remarkable for its mixed character. It is 
Turanian in its structure, Cushite or Ethio- 
pian in the bulk of its vocabulary, while, at the 
same time, it appears to contain both Semitic 
and Aryan elements. The people who spoke it, 
must, it would seem, have been living in close 

1 Abj'den. ap. Euseb. Prcep. Ev. ix. 14. Compare Alex. Poly- 
hist. ap. eundem, ix. 15. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 29 

contact with Aryan and Semitic races, while 
they were themselves Turanian, or Turano- 
Cushite, and must have adopted from those 
races a certain number of terms. This would 
be natural if the varieties of human speech 
were first found in Babylonia, and if the dis- 
persion of mankind took place from thence, 
for some portions of a race that migrates 
almost always remain in the original country. 
It must be added that, except in Babylonia, a 
mixed character is not observable in such early 
languages as are known to us, which are com- 
monly either distinctly Turanian, distinctly 
Aryan, or distinctly Semite. 

History proper, which has been defined to 
be " the history of states," 1 first dawns upon 
us in the tenth chapter of Genesis, EariyCushite 
where we hear for the first time Babylonia 
of a " kingdom," of cities, and of monuments. 
a " mighty one," who appears to have estab- 
lished an important monarchy (Gen. x. 8— 
10). The founder of this monarchy bears the 
name of Nimrod ; its site is the land of Shinar, 
or Babylonia ; its ethnic character is Cushite, 
or Ethiopian, for Nimrod is " the son " (*. e. 
descendant) " of Cush ; " its great cities are 
four, Babel (or Babylon), Erech, Accad, and 

1 Heeren, Handbuch der Geschichte der Staaten des Alter- 
thums, § 1. 



30 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

Cain eh. Here, then, we come for the first 
time upon something which history proper 
ought to be able to test, and here, conse- 
quently, we ask with interest, " What has 
history to tell us ? Does it indicate that we 
are on firm ground ; that we have to do with 
realities, with actual solid facts ? " The an- 
swer must most certainly be in the affirmative. 
Recent researches in Mesopotamia have re- 
vealed to us, as the earliest seat of power and 
civilization in Western Asia, a Cushite king- 
dom, 1 the sit&of which is Lower Babylonia, a 
main characteristic of which is its possession 
of large cities, and which even seems in an 
especial way to affect, in its political arrange- 
ments, the number four. Babel, Accad, and 
Erech (or Huruk), are names which occur in 
the early geographic nomenclature of this 
monarchy. Nimrod is a personage in its my- 
thology. The records discovered do not, prob- 
ably, mount up within some centuries of the 
foundation of the kingdom ; but they present 
us with a picture in perfect harmony with the 
Scriptural narrative — a picture of a state 
such as that set up by Nimrod would be likely 

1 The Cushite character of the primitive Babylonian mon- 
archy is proved by the close analogy of the language with that 
of the aboriginal races of Abyssinia, the Galla, Wolaiitsa, etc. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 81 

to have become two or three centuries after 
its foundation. 1 

Intimately connected with the account given 
in Gen. x. of the Babylonian kingdom of 
Nimrod, is a sketch of a sister, or Relations of 

. . ..... Assyria to Ba- 

daughter, kingdom m an adioimng byionia reaiiy 

• ' & „ . . , ,. J . & such as stated 

region. " Out 01 that land — the m Genesis. 
land of Shinar — we are told, " went forth 
Asshur, 2 and builded Nineveh, and the streets 
of the city, and Calah, and Resen between 
Nineveh and Calah ; the same is a great city." 
If this rendering of the original be correct, 3 

1 * The modern Arabs ascribe to Nimrod all the great works of 
modern times, such as the Blrs-Nimrud near Babylon, Ttl-Nim- 
ruJ near Bagdad, the dam of Sur el-Nlmrwl across the Tigris 
below Mosul, and the well-known mound of Nimrud in the same 
neighborhood (Smith's Bibl. Diet. vol. iii. p. 2557, Amer. ed. ). In 
these traditions we catch again glimpses of the great city-builder 
and warrior shadowed forth to us in the Bible-story. — H. 

2 *In the margin (A. V.)it is, " he " (Nimrod) " went out into 
Assyria;" and so De Wette, Tuch, Knobel, Delitsch, Kalisch, 
and others; the other rendering is approved by the Sept., Vulg., 
Luther, Calvin, and many of the older writers. But whether 
Nimrod or Asshur be the subject of the verb is not material to 
the point at issue; for essentially the same ethnographic and 
linguistic affiliation is proved in the one case as the other. — H. 

3 The rendering is that of the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and 
the ancient Syriac versions. It is approved by J. D. Michaelis, 
by Dathe, Rosenmiiller, and Von Bohlen. Kalisch and others 
prefer the rendering in the margin of our Bibles. 

*Our English Bible has also here "the streets of the city," in 
the margin, but " the city Rehoboth " in the text. The former 
perhaps suggests an idea of the greatness of Nineveh (Jon. iii. 
3; iv. 11) which the other does not, but seems out of place here 
where all the accompanying terms are proper names. Most 
critics prefer " Rehoboth-Ir," the name of a distinct city of 



32 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

we have here a statement that Asshur, or the 
Assyrian nation, having previously dwelt in 
Babylonia, " went out," or retired before the 
Cushites, and, proceeding to the northward, 
founded at some subsequent time the great 
Assyrian cities, Nineveh, Calah, and Resen. 
In a later part of the chapter, the Assyrians 
are declared to be Semites (ver. 22), closely 
connected by blood with the Syrians and the 
Hebrews. Of this entire account, the most 
remarkable points are, (1) the contrast of 
ethnic character noted as existing between the 
two neighboring peoples ; (2) the priority as- 
cribed to Babylon over Nineveh, and to the 
primitive Babylonian over the Assyrian king- 
dom ; and (3) the derivation of the Assyrians 
from Babylonia, or, in other words, the state- 
ment that having been originally inhabitants 
of the low country, they emigrated north- 
wards, leaving their previous seats to a people 
of a different origin. Till within a few years 
these statements seemed to involve great diffi- 
culties. Almost all ancient writers spoke of 
the Babylonians and Assyrians as kindred 
races, if not even as one people. Those who 
professed to be acquainted with their early 

that neighborhood, and one of the dependencies of Nineveh. 
See De Wette's Uebersetzung des A. Test., and Arnaud's French 
Version (1866). See Dr. Conant on Genesis x. 11. — H. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 33 

history declared that Assyria was the original 
seat of empire ; that Nineveh was built before 
Babylon ; and that the latter city owed its 
origin to an Assyrian princess, who conquered 
the country and built there a provincial capi- 
tal. 1 It is one of the main results of the re- 
cent Mesopotamia!! researcher, to have entirely 
demolished this view, which rests really on 
the sole authority of Ctesias. The recovered 
monuments show that the Mosaical account is, 
in all respects, true. The early Babylonians 
are proved to have been of an entirely dis- 
tinct race from the Assyrians, whose language 
is Semitic, while that of their southern neigh- 
bors is Cushite. A Babylonian kingdom is 
found to have flourished for centuries before 
there was any independent Assyria, or any 
such city as Nineveh. 2 With respect to the 
movement of the Assyrians northwards, the 
evidence is less direct ; but there are not want- 
ing some decided indications of it. The char- 
acter of the Assyrian architecture is such as 
to render it almost certain that their style was 
formed in a low, flat alluvium, like that of 
Chaldaea. Their mode of writing, and most 
of their religion, are derived from the Baby- 

i See Diod. Sic. ii. 1-20. 

2 See Lenormant, Manuel d' Histoive Ancienne de V Orient. 
torn. ii. pp. 16-43. 

3 



34 HISTOEICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

Ionian. They themselves always regard Bab- 
ylon as the true home of most of their gods, 
and are anxious to sacrifice at Babylonian 
shrines, as those at which the gods are most 
accessible. There is reason to believe that in 
many instances the Assyrians transported their 
dead into Babylonia, anxious that they should 
rest in what they regarded as their true 
country. 1 The spread of the race, after their 
native history commences, is northwards, and 
the capital is twice moved in this direction — 
from Asshur (Kileh-Sherghat) to Calah 
(Nimrud), and from Calah to Nineveh (Koy- 
unjik). Altogether, though the evidence on 
the third point is merely circumstantial, it is 
perhaps as convincing to a candid mind as the 
direct testimony which establishes the former 
two. 

From the general account of mankind, 
which has occupied him for eleven chapters, 
the author of Genesis turns, in ch. xii., to the 
history of an individual, the progenitor of the 
chosen race, to which God gave the first writ- 
some points in ten revelation. It was not to be 
Abrahamre-° f expected that profane history would 
tion e from U pro- take notice of this personage, who 
fane history. wag Q £ gma rj account, excepting to 

1 Arrian. Exp. Alex. vii. 22; Loftus, Chaldcea and Susiana, 
p. 199. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 35 

a single insignificant people, namely, the He- 
brews. Josephus indeed imagined that the 
Babylonian history of Berosus contained a 
mention of him ; x but this is, at any rate, un- 
certain ; and the only satisfactory illustrations 
from profane sources, of which the history of 
Abraham admits, will concern persons and 
countries with which he was brought into con- 
tact rather than himself or his own adven- 
tures. 2 On two occasions in his life the 
patriarch came into connection with royal 
personages, and with countries which play 
an important part in the world's early his- 
tory. We may reasonably inquire whether 
these countries and personages are represented 
agreeably to the tenor of ancient history, or 
the contrary. 

The first of the two occasions is the follow- 
ing. Abraham is living as a nomad chief in 
Palestine, when there occurs a se- Cond j tion of 
vere famine, which induces him to SSe Pt of n Ab»- 
take refuge in Egypt. There the ham - 
king of the country, who is called Pharaoh, 

1 Ant. Jud. i. 7, § 2. 

2 Accounts of Abraham were given by several of the later 
Greek writers, as Eupolemus, Artapanus, Nicolaus Damascenus, 
and others: but these writers drew probably from Genesis (see 
Rawlinson's Bimpton Lectures for 1859, p. 70). 

* An American edition of the Lectures was published by Gould 
and Lincoln, Boston, 1860. — H. 



36 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

hearing of the beauty of Abraham's wife, 
whom he has represented as his sister, sends 
for her, intending to marry her ; but before 
the marriage is consummated, discovering her 
real relationship to the patriarch, he rebukes 
him and sends the pair away. The narrative 
is very brief ; but we learn from it : (1.) That 
Egypt was already under a settled govern- 
ment, having a king, and " princes " who 
acted as the king's subordinates. (2.) That 
the name or title of the monarch was one 
which to the ears of the Hebrews sounded 
" Pha-ra-oh." (3.) That the country was 
one to which recourse was naturally had by 
the inhabitants of neighboring lands in a time 
of scarcity. Now on all these points the 
sacred narrative is in harmony with profane 
sources. History Proper, the " history of 
states," begins with Egypt, where there is 
reason to believe that a settled government 
was established, and monarchical institutions 
set up, at an earlier date than in any other 
country. 1 

1 Herodotus, Diodorus, and the Greek writers generally give 
an antiquity to the Egyptian kingdom very much beyond that 
which they ascribe to any other. An extreme antiquity was 
claimed by the Egyptians themselves. Among moderns, some 
allow these extreme claims. Even those who most decidedly 
disallow them still admit the priority of the Egyptian over all 
other known kingdoms. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 37 

That a name, or title, near to Pharaoh, 
might be borne by an Egyptian king, appears 
from Herodotus ; 1 and modern hieroglyphic 
research has pointed out more than one suita- 
ble title, 2 which Hebrews might represent by 
the characters found in Genesis. The charac- 
ter of Egypt as a granary of surrounding na- 
tions is notorious ; and this character has at- 
tached to her throughout the entire course of 
her history. The narrative of Gen. xii. 10- 
20, therefore, brief as it is, contains at least 
three points capable of confirmation or refuta- 
tion from profane sources, and on all these 
points those sources confirm it. 

The other event in the life of Abraham 
which receives some illustration from pro- 
fane history, is the account which is p OW erofEiam 
given in Gen. xiv. of his rescue of citELm- 
Lot, his nephew, from the hands of er- 
Chedor-laomer, king of Elam. It appears, by 
the narrative of this chapter, that in the in- 

i Herod, ii. 111. 

2 "Pharaoh " has been explained as PA' ouro, "the king"; 
and again as PA' Ha, " the Sun," which was a title borne by 
many Egyptian monarchs. But the best hieroglyphical scholars 
now regard it as the equivalent of the Egyptian Ptraa, or 
Perao, "the great house," which is "the regular title of the 
Egyptian kings" {De, Rouge). 

* " Pharaoh " has its analogy therefore, in that of "Sublime 
Porte " as one of the titles of the Grand Sultan of Turkey. At 
all events it is not to be regarded as a proper name. — H. 



38 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

terval between the time of Nimrod and that 
of Abraham, power had passed from the 
hands of the Babylonians into those of a 
neighboring nation, the Elamites, who ex- 
ercised a suzerainty over the lower Mesopo- 
tamian cotmtry, and felt themselves strong 
enough to make warlike expeditions into the 
distant land of Palestine. The king of Elam 
in the time of Abraham was Chedor-laomer 
(Chedol-logomer LXX.). Assisted by his 
vassal-monarchs, Amraphel, king of Shinar, 
Arioch, king of Ellasar (or Larsa), and Tidal 
(or Thargal LXX.), "king of nations," he 
invaded Palestine, defeated the princes of the 
country in a battle near the Dead Sea, and 
forced them to become his subjects. After 
twelve years, however, they revolted, and a 
second expedition was led by Chedor-laomer 
into the country, which resulted in another 
defeat of the Palestinian monarchs, in the 
plunder of Sodom and Gomorrha, and in the 
capture of Lot. Upon hearing of this, Abra- 
ham armed his servants, three hundred and 
eighteen in number, and assisted by a body 
of Amorites, went in pursuit of the retiring 
army, hung on its rear, dealt it some severe 
blows, and recovered his nephew, together 
with many other prisoners and much booty. 
Of the actual expeditions here narrated, 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 39 

profane history contains no account. But the 
change in the position of Babylon, the rise of 
the Elamites to power and preeminence, and 
the occurrence about this time of Elamitic ex- 
peditions into Palestine or the adjacent dis- 
tricts, are witnessed to by documents recently 
disinterred from the mounds of Mesopotamia. 
The name, too, of the Elamitic king, though 
not yet actually found on any monument, is 
composed of elements both of which occur in 
Elamite documents separately, and is of a 
type exactly similar to other Elamitic names 
of the period. To give the evidence more 
fully, it is stated in an inscription of Asshur- 
bani-pal, the son of Esar-haddon, that 1635 
years before his own capture of Susa, or about 
B. c. 2286, Kudur-Nakhunta, then king of 
Elam, led an expedition into Babylonia, took 
the towns, plundered the temples, and carried 
off the images of the gods to his own capital, 
where they remained to the time of the As- 
syrian conquest. 1 From Babylonian docu- 
ments of a date not much later (b. c. 2200- 
2100), it appears that an Elamitic dynasty 
had by that time been established in Babylo- 
nia itself, and that a king called Kudur-Ma- 
buk, an Elamite prince, who held his court at 

1 G. Smith in Zeitschrift far vEgyptische Sprache, Novem- 
ber 1868, p. 116. 



40 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

Ur, in Lower Chaldsea, carried his arms so far 
to the westward, that he took the title of 
" Ravager of the West," or " Ravager of 
Syria," — a title which is found inscribed upon 
his bricks. The element Kudur, which com- 
mences the name of this prince, and also that 
of Kudur-Nakhunta, is identical with the He- 
brew Chedor, while Lagamer is elsewhere 
found as an Elamitic god, which is the case 
also with Mabuk and Nakhunta. Thus Che- 
dor-laomer (Kudur-Lagamer) is a name of ex- 
actly the same type with Kudur-Nakhunta 
and Kudur-Mabuk ; its character is thoroughly 
Elamitic ; and it is appropriate to the time at 
which the writer of Genesis places the mon- 
arch bearing it. 

The events related from the fourteeenth to 
the thirty-ninth chapter of Genesis are alto- 
No further ii- gather of so private a nature, that 
thfthne of tiU Profane history could scarcely be 
Joseph. expected to notice them. Our in- 

formation moreover with respect to the time 
is scanty, and scarcely extends to Palestine, 
the scene of the events narrated. When, 
however, we come to the history of Joseph, 
we are once more brought into contact with 
the important kingdom of Egypt, a kingdom 
of which, even at this remote date, we have 
considerable knowledge, derived in part from 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 41 

ancient authors, in part from the native monu- 
ments, which occasionally (it is believed) reach 
back to this remote period. Here, then, pro- 
fane history may once more be applied to test 
the veracity of the narrative ; and it may be 
inquired whether the Egypt of Joseph agrees 
or disagrees with the Ancient Egypt of the 
monuments and the old classical writers. 

Now the chief features of the Egypt de- 
picted in the later chapters of Genesis seem 
to be the following : The mon- Minute de- 

_ . . . scription of 

archv, noted in Gren. xn., continues. Egypt in the 

mi " i • 'ii i i • l £ later chapters 

The king still bears the title ot of Genesis. 
" Pharaoh." He is absolute, or nearly so, 
committing men to prison (xl. 3), and releas- 
ing them (lb. 21), or, if he please, ordering 
their execution (lb. 22) ; appointing officers 
over the whole land, and taxing it apparently 
at his pleasure (lb. 34) ; raising a foreigner 
suddenly to the second position in the king- 
dom, and requiring all, without exception, to 
render him obedience (lb. 41-44). At the 
same time the king has counselors, or minis- 
ters, " elders of his house " (1. 7), and others, 
whose advice he asks, and without whose sanc- 
tion he does not seem to act in important 
matters (xli. 37, 38). His court is organized 
after the fashion of later Oriental monarchies. 
He has a body-guard, under a commander or 



42 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 

" captain," one of whose chief duties is to ex- 
ecute the sentences which he pronounces upon 
offenders (xxxvii. 36). He has a train of 
confectioners, at the head of whom is a " chief 
confectioner" (xl. 2), and a train of cup- 
bearers, at the head of whom is a " chief cup- 
bearer " (lb.). He rides in a chariot, and all 
men bow the knee before him (xli. 43). The 
state of Egypt is one of somewhat advanced 
civilization. There are distinct classes of 
soldiers (xxxvii. 36), priests (xlvii. 22), phy- 
sicians (1. 2), and herdsmen (xlvi. 34 ; xlvii. 
6). There is also a class of "magicians" 
(xli. 8), or " sacred scribes," who may be 
either a subdivision of the priests, or form a 
distinct profession. The name given to this 
last class implies that writing is practiced. 
Among other indications of advance in civili- 
zation are, the mention of "fine linen," as 
worn by some (lb. 42), of a golden neck- 
chain (lb.), a silver drinking-cup (xliv. 2), 
wagons (xlv. 21), chariots (1. 9), a coffin, or 
mummy-case (lb. 26), and the practice of 
embalming (lb. 2, 26). Among special pecul- 
iarities of the nation are (1), the position of 
the priests, which is evidently very exalted 
(xli. 45), and more particularly their privi- 
lege with respect to their lands, which they 
hold by a different tenure from the rest of the 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 43 

people (xlvii. 22) ; (2) the existence of cus- 
toms implying strong feelings with respect 
to purity and impurity, and a great dread of 
material defilement (xliii. 32) ; (3), a special 
dislike, or contempt, for the occupation of 
herdsmen ; and (4), a greater liberty with 
respect to the intermixture of the sexes than 
is common in the East, with a consequent 
licentiousness in the conduct of the women 
(xxxix. 7-12). Other noticeable points are, 
the great fertility of the soil, the existence of 
numerous granaries (xli. 56~), the practice of 
carrying burdens upon the head (xl. 16) ; the 
use, by the monarch, of a signet-ring (xli. 
42) ; the employment of bought slaves (xxxix. 
1) ; the importation of spices from Arabia 
(xxvii. 25) ; the use of stewards (xxxix. 41 ; 
xliv. 1) ; the washing of guests' feet (xliii. 
24) ; the practice of sitting at meals (lb. 38) ; 
the use of wine (xl. 11; xliii. 34), and meat 
(xliii. 16) ; and the employment of some 
mode, which is not explained, of divination by 
cups (xliv. 5). 

It may be broadly stated that in this entire 
description there is not a single feature which 
is out of harmony with what we know of the 
Egypt of this remote period from other sources. 
Nay, more, almost every point in it is confirmed 
either by the classical writers, by the monu- 



44 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

ments, or by both. The king's absolute au- 
compiete con- thority appears abundantly from 
the description Herodotus, Diodorus, and others. 

from profane 

sources. He enacted laws, imposed taxes, 

administered justice, executed and pardoned 
offenders at his pleasure. 1 He had a body- 
guard, which is constantly seen on the sculp- 
tures, in close attendance upon his person. 2 
He was assisted in the management of state 
affairs by the advice of a council, consisting of 
the most able and distinguished members of 
the priestly order. 3 His court was magnificent, 
and comprised various grand functionaries, 
whose tombs are among the most splendid of 
the early remains of Egyptian art. 4 When he 
left his palace for any purpose, he invariably 
rode in a chariot. His subjects, wherever he 
appeared, bowed down or prostrated them- 
selves. 5 With respect to the early civilization 
of Egypt, it is especially noted by those conver- 
sant with the subject, that the earliest sculp- 
tures extant, even those anterior to the pyra- 
mid period, which can scarcely be later than 

1 See Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, vol. ii. pp. 22, 23; and 
compare Herod, ii. 136, 177; Diod. Sic. i. 79, etc. 

2 Rosellini, Monumenti deW Egitto, vol. ii. pp. 201, 202. 

3 Diod. Sic. i. 73. 

4 Lenormant, Manuel d'Histoire Ancienne deV Orient, torn. 
i. pp. 333, 334. 

5 Wilkinson, vol. ii. p. 24. "These prostrations," he says, 
"are frequently represented in the sculptures." 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 45 

B. c. 2400 or 2300, contain traces of a prog- 
ress and advance which are most striking, and 
indeed surprising. " We see no primitive 
mode of life," says Sir G. Wilkinson, u no 
barbarous customs ; not even the habit, so 
slowly abandoned by all people, of wearing 
arms when not on military service ; nor any 

archaic art In the tombs of the 

pyramid-period are represented the same 
fishing and fowling scenes ; the rearing of 
cattle, and wild animals of the desert ; the 
scribes using the same kind of reed for writ- 
ing on the papyrus ; the same boats ; the same 
mode of preparing for the entertainment of 
guests ; the same introduction of music and 
dancing ; the same trades, as glass-blowers, 
cabinet-makers, and others ; as well as similar 
agricultural scenes, implements, and grana- 
ries." 1 " Les representations de cette tombe," 
says M. Lenormant, speaking of one more an- 
cient than the Great Pyramid, " nous montrent 
la civilisation Egyptienne aussi completement 
organisee qu'elle l'etait au moment de la con- 
quete des Perses ou de celle des Macedoniens, 
avec une physionomie completement individ- 
uelle et les marques d'une longue existence 

1 See the same writer in Eawlinson's Herodotus, vol. ii.p. 291, 
2d edition. 



46 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

anterieure." * This civilization comprises the 
practice of writing, the distinction into classes 
or castes, the peculiar dignity of the priests, 
the practice of embalming and of burying in 
wooden coffins or mummy-cases, 2 the manu- 
facture and use of linen garments, the wear- 
ing of gold chains, and almost all the other 
points which have been noted in the Mosaic 
description. The priests' privilege with re- 
spect to lands, which cannot be proved from 
the monuments, is mentioned by Herodotus 
and Diodorus ; 3 and the former distinctly 
states that the general proprietorship of the 
land was vested in the king. The same 
writer witnesses to the strong feeling of the 
Egyptians with respect to " uncleanness," 
and to their fear of contracting defilement by 
contact with foreigners. 4 The Egyptian con- 
tempt for herdsmen appears abundantly on 
the monuments, where they are commonly rep- 
resented as dirty and unshaven, and sometimes 

1 Lenormant, Manuel d'Histoire, torn. i. p. 334. 

* "The representations of this tomb," says M. Lenormant, 
" show us the civilization of Egypt as completely organized as 
it was at the moment of the conquest of the Persians, with a 
physiognomy altogether peculiar and the marks of a long ante- 
rior existence." — H. 

2 The coffin of Mycerinus, discovered in the third pyramid 
(which belongs to about b. c. 2300-2200), was of sycamore 
wood. 

3 Herod, ii. 168 (compare 109); Diod. Sic. i. 73. 

4 Herod, ii. 45. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 47 

even caricatured as a deformed and unseemly 
race. 1 The liberty allowed to women is like- 
wise seen on the monuments, where in the rep- 
resentation of entertainments, we find men and 
women frequently sitting together, both strang- 
ers and also members of the same family; 2 and 
that this liberty was liable to degenerate into 
license, appears both from what Herodotus 
says of the character of Egyptian women, 3 
and from the story told in the Papyrus d'Or- 
biney, 4 entitled " The Two Brothers," where 
the wife of the elder brother acts towards the 
younger almost exactly as the wife of Potiphar 
towards Joseph. 5 The practice of men carrying 
burdens on the head, both appears on the mon- 
uments and is also noticed by Herodotus ; 6 that 
of sitting at meals, which was unlike the pa- 
triarchal and the common Oriental custom, 7 
is also completely in accordance with the nu- 
merous representations of banquets found in 
the tombs ; the washing of guests' feet, which 
does not appear to be represented, is illus- 
trated by a tale in Herodotus, as well as by 

1 Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, vol. ii. p. 16. 
■2 Ibid. p. 389. 

3 Herod, ii. 111. Compare Diod. Sic. i. 59. 

4 * This papyrus is in the British Museum. For a translation 
of the tale, see the Cambridge Essays for 1858. — H. 

5 Ebers, ^Egypten, p. 311. 

6 Herod, ii. 35; Wilkinson, vol. ii. pp. 151, 385, etc. 

7 See Gen. xviii. 4. 



48 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

the ancient custom of the Greeks j 1 divination 
by cups is noted as an Egyptian superstition 
by Jamblichus ; 2 the monuments abound with 
representations of stewards and granaries, of 
the purchase and sale of slaves, and of the 
employment of wagons and chariots. 3 The 
use of a signet-ring by the monarch has re- 
cently received a remarkable illustration by 
the discovery of an impression of such a sig- 
net on fine clay at Koyunjik, the site of the 
ancient Nineveh. This seal appears to have 
been impressed from the bezel of a metallic 
finger-ring ; it is an oval, two inches in length 
by one inch wide, and bears the image, name, 
and titles of the Egyptian king, Sabaco. 4 

It would weary the reader were we to pro- 
ceed further with this confirmation of the 
Mosaic narrative in all its details. A simpler, 
and perhaps a stronger confirmation is to be 

1 Herod, ii. 172; Horn. Od. iii. 460-468; iv. 48. 

2 Jamblich. de Mysteriis ^Egypt. iii. 14. 

3 On stewards and granaries see Wilkinson, vol. ii. pp. 135, 
136; Rosellini, ii. p. 329. On the sale of slaves, see Wilkinson, 
vol. i. p. 404. On the employment of wagons and chariots, see 
Wilkinson, vol. i. p. 335; vol. iii. p. 179. 

4 See Layard, Nineveh and Babylon, p. 156, and note. Other 
impressions of royal signets have been found in Egypt; and the 
actual signet-rings of two of the ancient monarchs (Cheops and 
Horus) have been recovered. 

* Figures of many of these objects (military, agricultural, and 
domestic) copied from Egyptian monuments, will be found in 
Smith's Bibl. Diet. vol. i. pp. 671-685, Amer. ed. — H. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 49 

found in an examination of those few points 
in respect of which modern Rationalism has 
ventured to impugn the Sacred His- Points to which 
tor}^, and on the strength of which been taken, 
it lias been argued that the writer of the Pen- 
tateuch was unacquainted with Egypt, and 
composed his work many centuries after the 
time of Moses. Now, the points to which ex- 
ception has been taken — so far as Genesis is 
concerned — appear to be chiefly these : (1) 
the mention of camels and asses among the pos- 
sessions of Abraham in Egypt (Gen. xii. 16) ; 
(2) the blasting of the ears of corn by the 
east wind (xli. 6) ; (3) the cultivation of the 
vine and the use of wine in Egypt (xl. 11) ; 
(4) the use of flesh for food, especially by 
one connected with the higher castes of the 
Egyptians, as Joseph was (xliii. 16) ; (5) the 
employment of eunuchs (regarded as implied 
in xxxvii. 36) ; (6) the possibility of famine 
in Egypt ; and (7) the possibility of such a 
marriage as is said to have taken place be- 
tween a foreign shepherd and the daughter of 
the high-priest of Heliopolis (xli. 45). 1 

It is undoubtedly true that there are no rep- 
resentations of camels on the Egyptian monu- 
ments, and that the ancient writers who speak 

1 See Von Bohlen, Die Genesis historisch-Tcritisch erldutert, 
and Tuch, Comment, iiber d. Genesis. 



50 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

of the animals of Egypt do not mention them. 
These points But, on the other hand, it is cer- 
tain, from the circumstances of the 
country at the present day, that much of 
Egypt is well suited to the camel ; 1 and it is 
beyond a doubt that camels always abounded 
in the parts of Asia bordering upon Egypt, 
and that they must have been used in any 
traffic that took place between Egypt and her 
Eastern neighbors. Hence the bulk of mod- 
ern writers upon Ancient Egypt place the 
camel among her animals ; though some ob- 
serve that " they were probably only kept 
upon the frontier." 2 

[* Camels are not uncommon in Egypt at the 
present time. Most of the travelling between 
Egypt and Palestine is performed in that 
way. Stra"bo, the Greek geographer (speak- 
ing of a much later time of course), says that 
the Egyptians travelled with camels through 
the desert from Coptos (Upper Egypt) to 
Berenice (Ezion-geber, Num. xxxiii. 35, 36 ; 
Deut. ii. 8). The objection as drawn from 
Gen. xii. 16, is not justified ; for not a word 
is said there of the use of camels among the 
Egyptians (which agrees perfectly with the 
silence of the Egyptian monuments), but that 

1 Wilkinson, vol. iii. p. 35. 

2 Wilkinson, vol. iii. p. 35; vol. v. p. 187. Stewart PooV in 
Smith's Biblical Bid. vol. i. p. 500 ; and i. p. 673, Amor. ed. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 51 

Abraham favored by Pharaoh was greatly 
prospered as a herdsman, and among his pos- 
sessions had also camels, as a nomad, such as 
Abraham was and continued to be (Gen. xiii. 
11), would of course have. If the monuments 
afford no proof that the Egyptians had camels 
in that age, neither does the book of Genesis, 
and the two records are consistent with each 
other in that respect.] 

With regard to asses, the objection taken 
is extraordinary, and indicates an astonishing 
degree of ignorance ; since asses were amongst 
the most common of Egyptian animals, a sin- 
gle individual possessing sometimes as many 
as seven or eight hundred. 1 

An actual " east wind " is rare in Egypt, 
and when it occurs is not injurious to vegeta- 
tion ; but the southeast wind, which would 
be included under the Hebrew term translated 
u east " in Gen. xli., is frequent, and is often 
most oppressive. Ukert thus sums up the ac- 
counts which modern travellers have given of 
it : " As long as the southeast wind continues, 
doors and windows are closed, but the fine dust 
penetrates everywhere ; everything dries up ; 
wooden vessels warp and crack. The ther- 
mometer rises suddenly from 16.20 degrees up 

1 * Lepsius confirms this statement explicitly (Denkmdler 
aus jEgypten und ^Ethiopia). — H. 



52 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

to 30, 36, and even 38 degrees of Reaumur 
This wind works destruction upon everything. 
The grass withers so that it entirely perishes, 
if this wind blows long." 1 

Though Herodotus (ii. 77) denies the exist- 
ence of the vine in Egypt, and Plutarch states 
that wine was not drunk there till the reign of 
Psammetichus, 2 yet it is now certain, from the 
monuments, that the cultivation of the grape, 
the art of making wine, and the practice of 
drinking it, were well known in Egypt at 
least from the time of the Pyramids. Sir G. 
Wilkinson observes, that " wine was univer- 
sally used by the rich throughout Egypt, and 
beer supplied its place at the tables of the 
poor, not because they had no vines in the 
country, but because it was cheaper." 3 And 
this statement is as true of the most ancient 
period represented on the monuments as of 
any other. 

The denial of the use of flesh for food among 
high-caste Egyptians is one of those curious 
errors into which learned men occasionally fall, 
strangely and unaccountably. There is really 



1 Quoted by Hengstenberg, ^Egypten und Mose, p. 10. 

* First translated in this country by Prof. R. D. C. Robbins 
and subsequently in Clark's Theological Library, Edinburgh. 
— H. 

2 De hid. et Osir. § 6. 

8 Wilkinson in Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. ii. p. 107; 2d ed 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 53 

no ancient writer who asserts that even the 
priests abstain ordinarily from animal food, 
while the best authors distinctly declare the 
contrary. 1 And the cooking scenes, which 
abound on the Egyptian monuments of all 
ages, 2 show that animal food was the principal 
diet of the upper classes. 

With respect to the existence of eunuchs in 
Ancient Egypt, the evidence is conflicting. 
Rosellini believed that he found them depicted 
on the monuments. 3 - Wilkinson, on the other 
hand, does not recognize them ; and it must 
be admitted to be doubtful whether they are 
really represented or no. But it is at least 
certain that Manetho, the Egyptian priest, 
regarded them as an old national institution, 
since he related that a king of the twelfth 
dynasty (ab. B. c. 1900) was assassinated by 
his eunuchs. 4 On the other hand it is uncer- 
tain whether the Hebrew word used of Poti- 
phar (Gen. xxxvii. 36), and of the "chief 
butler " and " chief baker " (xl. 2), though 
originally it may have meant " eunuch," had 
not also the secondary sense of " officer " at 
the time of the composition of the Pentateuch. 
That it had this sense in later times is allowed 

1 Herod, ii. 37 ; Plut. De Is. et Osir. § 5. 

2 Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, vol. ii. pp. 374-388. 

3 Monumenti deW F.git.to, vol. ii. p. 132 et seq. 

4 Manetho ap. Euseb. Chron. Can. i. 20. 



54 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

on all hands, and some even regard it as the 
original meaning of the word. 1 

To deny, as Von Bohlen does, 2 the possibil- 
ity of famine in Egypt, is absurd. Ancient 
writers constantly notice its liability to this 
scourge, when the inundation of the Nile falls 
below the average ; 3 and history tells of 
numerous cases in which the inhabitants of 
the country have suffered terribly from want. 4 
The most remarkable occasion, and one which 
furnishes a near parallel to the famine of 
Joseph, was in the year of the Hegira 457 
(a. d. 1064), when a famine began which 
lasted seven years, and was so severe that 
dogs and cats, and even human flesh, were 
eaten ; all the horses of the caliph, but three, 
perished, and his family had to fly into Syria. 
Another famine, scarcely less severe, took 
place in A. D. 1199, and is recorded by Abd- 
el-Latif, 5 an eye-witness, in very similar 
terms. 

The marriage of Joseph with the daughter 
of the high-priest of On (Heliopolis), is an 

1 Cook Taylor, note in the translation of Hengstenberg's 
JEgypten und Mose (Clark's Theological Library, p. 23). 

2 Die Genesis erlautert, § 421. 

3 Strab. xvii. 3, § 15 ; Plin. //. N. v. 9; xviii. 18. 

4 Several famines are mentioned on the monuments (Brugsch, 
Histoire cl' tgypte, vol. i. p. 56). Others are recorded by Mo- 
hammedan writers, as Makn'zi, Es-Suyuti, and others. 

5 See the Description de VEgpte, torn. vii. p. 332. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 55 

event to which it must be admitted that we 
cannot show any exact parallel. It would 
seem, however, that the exclusiveness of the 
Egyptians with respect to marriage has been 
overrated. The kings, who, on their acces- 
sion, became members of the priestly order 
and heads of the national religion, readily 
gave their daughters to foreigners, as one gave 
his to Solomon, and several in later times 
gave theirs to Ethiopians. 1 Moreover, it 
must be borne in mind, that Joseph was natu- 
ralized, and was accounted an Egyptian, just 
as the Ptolemies were in later times, and that 
thus any marriage would be open to him 
which was open to other non-priestly Egyp- 
tians. If there had still been any reluctance 
on the part of the high-priest, it must have 
yielded to the command of the despotic king, 
who is expressly stated to have made the 
?riage. 

1 Wilkinson in Eawlinson's Herodotus, vol. ii. p. 141. 



56 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 






CHAPTER III. 

EXODUS TO DEUTERONOMY. 

The narrative contained in these four books 
— Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuter- 
onomy — covers a space of probably less than 
two centuries ; and the scene is chiefly laid 
in countries of which profane history tells us 
little or nothing at this early period. Illus- 
tration of the narrative from profane sources 
must, therefore, be almost entirely confined to 
that portion of it which precedes the depart- 
ure from Egypt, or, in other words, to the 
time during which the descendants of Abra- 
ham remained in close contact with a civilized 
nation, whose records and monuments have 
come down to us. For this space two sorts of 
illustrations are possible. The same kind of 
agreement between the details of the Biblical 
narrative and the usages known to have pre- 
vailed in Ancient Egypt, which has been 
pointed out with respect to the latter part of 
Genesis, may be traced likewise here ; and 
further, the Exodus itself, or withdrawal from 
Egypt of an oppressed portion of the popula- 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 57 

tion, and their settlement in southern Syria 
or Palestine, may be shown to have Profane ac- 

. -K ■ counts of the 

Left traces in Egyptian literature, Exodus, 
traces which quite unmistakably point to 
some such series of transactions as those re- 
corded in the sacred volume. 

In proof of this latter point, to which pre- 
cedence may be assigned on account of its ex- 
ceeding interest, an exact translation will, in 
the first place, be given of two passages, one 
from the early Egyptian writer, Manetho, and 
the other from a later author of the same 
nation, Chseremon, both of whom were priests 
and learned in the antiquities of their 
country. 

Manetho (as reported by the Jewish histo- 
rian, Josephus x ) said : — 

" A king, named Amenophis, desired to behold 
the gods, like Horus, one of his predecessors, and 
imparted Ins desire to his namesake, Account of 
Amenophis, son of Paapis, who, on 
account of his wisdom and acquaintance with futu- 
rity was thought to be a partaker of the divine 
nature. His namesake told him that he would be 
able to see the gods, if he cleansed the whole 
country of the lepers and the other polluted per- 
sons in it. The king was pleased, and collecting 
together all that had any bodily defect throughout 

1 Cvntr. Aplvn. i. 2G, 27. 



58 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

Egypt, to the number of eighty thousand, he cast 
them into the stone-quarries which lie east of the 
Nile, in order that they might work there together 
with the other Egyptians employed similarly. 
Among them were some of the learned priests who 
were afflicted with leprosy. But Amenophis, the 
sage and prophet, grew alarmed,- fearing the wrath of 
the gods against himself as well as against the king, 
if the forced labor of the men were observed, and 
he proceeded to foretell that there would come per- 
sons to the assistance of the unclean, who would be 
masters of Egypt for thirteen years. But as he 
did not dare to say this to the king, he put it all in 
writing, and, leaving the document behind him, 
killed himself. Hereupon the king was greatly de- 
jected ; and when the workers in the stone-quarries 
had suffered for a considerable time, the king, at 
their request, set apart for their refreshment and 
protection, the city of Avaris, which was empty, 
having been deserted by the shepherds. Now this 
place, according to the mythology, was of old a Ty- 
phonian town. So when the people had entered the 
city, and had thus a stronghold on which to rest, 
they appointed as their leader a priest of Heliopo- 
lis, by name Osarsiph, and swore to obey him in all 
things. And he, first of all, gave them a law, that 
they should worship no gods, and should abstain 
from none of the auimals accounted most holy in 
Egypt, but sacrifice and consume all alike ; and fur- 
ther, that they should associate with none but their 
fellow-conspirators. Having established these and 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 59 

many other laws completely opposed to the customs 
of Egypt, he commanded the bulk of them to build 
up the town wall, and to make themselves ready for 
a war with Amenophis the king. After this, hav- 
ing consulted with some of the other priests and 
polluted persons, he sent ambassadors to the shep- 
herds, who had been driven out of Egypt by 
Tethmosis, to the city which is called Jerusalem, 
and after informing them about himself and his 
fellow-sufferers, invited them to join with him in 
an attack upon Egypt. He would bring them, he 
said, in the first place, to Avaris, the city of their 
forefathers, and would provide them amply with 
all that was necessary for their host ; he would fight 
on their behalf, when occasion offered, and easily 
make the country subject to them. They, on their 
part, were exceedingly rejoiced, and promptly set out 
in full force, to the number of two hundred thousand 
men, and soon reached Avaris. Now when Amen- 
ophis, the Egyptian king, heard of their invasion, 
he was not a little disquieted, since he remembered 
what Amenophis the son of Paapis, had prophesied; 
and though he had previously collected together a 
vast host of Egyptians, and had taken counsel 
with their leaders, yet soon he gave orders that 
the sacred animals held in the most repute in the 
various temples should be conveyed to him, and 
that the priests of each temple should hide away 
the images of the gods as securely as possible. 
Moreover he placed his son, Sethos — called also 
Harnesses, after Rampses, his (t. e. Amenophis') 



60 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

father, — who was a boy of five years old, in the 
hands of one of his friends. He then himself 
crossed the river with the other Egyptians, three 
hundred thousand in number, all excellent soldiers ; 
but when the enemy advanced to meet him, he de- 
clined to engage, since he thought that it would be 
fighting against the gods, and returned hastily to 
Memphis. Then, carrying with him the Apis and 
the other sacred animals which had been brought 
to him, he proceeded at once with the whole Egyp- 
tian army to Ethiopia. Now the king of Ethiopia 
lay under obligations to him : he therefore received 
him, supplied his host with all the necessaries that 
his country afforded, assigned them cities and vil- 
lages sufficient for the fated thirteen years' suspen- 
sion of their sovereignty, and even placed an Ethi- 
opian force on the Egyptian frontier for the 
protection of the army of Amenophis. Thus stood 
matters in Ethiopia. But the Solymites who had 
returned from exile, and the unclean Egyptians, 
treated the people of the country so shamefully, 
that their government appeared, to those who wit- 
nessed their impieties, to be the worst Egypt had 
known. For not only did they burn cities and 
hamlets, nor were they content with plundering the 
temples and ill-treating the images, but they con- 
tinued to use the venerated sacred animals as food, 
and compelled the priests and prophets to.be their 
slayers and butchers, and then sent them away 
naked. And it is said that the priest who framed 
their constitution and their laws, who was a native 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 61 

of Heliopolis, named Osarsiph, after the Heliopol- 
itan god Osiris, after he joined this set of people, 

changed his name, and was called Moses 

Afterwards, Amenophis returned from Ethiopia 
with a great force, as did his son Rampses, who 
was likewise accompanied by a force, and together 
they engaged the shepherds and the unclean, and 
defeated them, slaying many and pursuing the 
remainder to the borders of Syria." 

The statement of Chaeremon is as follows : 1 

" Isis having appeared to Amenophis in his 
sleep, and reproached him because her temple had 
been destroyed in the (shepherd) war, Account of 
Phritiphantes, the sacred scribe, in- Ch ™ 0Q - 
formed him that if he would purge the land of 
Egypt of all those who had any pollution he would 
be subject to no more such alarms. So he collected 
250,000 defiled persons, and expelled them from 
the country. Two scribes, called Moses and Joseph, 
led them forth ; the latter of whom was, like Phriti- 
phantes, a sacred scribe ; and both of these men 
had Egyptian names, the name of Moses being 
Tisithen, and that of Joseph, Peteseph. They pro- 
ceeded to Pelusium, and there fell in with 380,000 
persons, who had been left behind by Amenophis, 
because he did not like to bring them into Egypt. 
So they made an alliance with these men, and 
invaded Egypt ; whereupon Amenophis, without 
waiting for them to attack him, fled away into 

1 Ap. Joseph, c. Apion. § 32. 



62 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

Ethiopia, leaving his wife, who was pregnant, be- 
hind him. And she, having hid herself in some 
caves, gave birth there to a son, who was called 
Messenes, who, when he came to man's estate, 
drove the Jews into Syria, their number being 
about 200,000, and received back his father Amen- 
ophis out of Ethiopia." 

From these passages it appears (1) that the 
Egyptians had a tradition of an Exodus from 
Points of ac- their country of persons whom they 

cordance be- 

tween these regarded as unclean, persons who 

accounts and . 

scripture. rejected their customs, retused to 
worship their gods, and killed for food the 
animals which they held as sacred ; (2) that 
they connected this Exodus with the names 
of Joseph 1 and Moses; (3) that they made 
southern Syria the country into which the 
unclean persons withdrew ; and (4) that they 
placed the event in the reign of a certain 
Amenophis, son of Rameses, or Rampses, and 
father of S ethos, who was made to reign towards 
the close of the eighteenth dynasty, or about B. 
c. 1400-1300. 2 The circumstances by which 

1 It must be remembered that the Israelites did carry with 
them out of Egypt the body of Joseph (Ex. xiii. 19), and that 
there was, thus, some foundation for the Egyptian notion, that 
Moses and Joseph led them out. 

It is said also in Josh. xxiv. 32, that " the bones of Joseph 
which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried 
they in Shechem." See also Acts vii. 15, 16. — H. 

2 Egyptian chronology and the date of the Exodus are, both 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 63 

the Exodus was preceded are represented dif- 
ferently in the Egyptian and in the Hebrew 
narrative, either because the memory of some 
other event is confused with that of the Jewish 
Exodus, or because the Egyptian writers, be- 
ing determined to represent the withdrawal of 
the Jews from Egypt as an expulsion, were 
driven to invent a cause for the expulsion in 
a precedent war, and a temporary dominion 
of the polluted persons over their country. 
Among little points common to the two nar- 
ratives, and tending to identify them, are the 
following : (1) the name of Avaris given to 
the town made, over to the polluted persons, 
which stands in etymological connection with 
the word " Hebrew " ; (2) the character of 
the pollution ascribed to them, leprosy, which 
may be accounted for, first, by the fact that 
one of the signs by which Moses was to prove 
his divine mission consisted in the exhibition 
of a leprous hand (Ex. iv. 6) ; and, secondly, 
by the existence of this malady to a considera- 
ble extent among the Hebrew people at the 
time (Lev. xiii. and xiv.) ; (3) the mention 

of them, still unsettled. M. Lenormant places the accession of 
the nineteenth dynasty in b. c. 1462 {Manuel d'Histoire, torn, 
i. p. 321); Sir G. Wilkinson in b. c. 1321 (Ravvlinson's Herodo- 
tus, vol. ii. p. 308, 2d ed.); Mr. Stuart Poole about b. c. 1340 
(Biblical Dict.vol. i. p. 511; and vol. i. p. 684, Amer. ed.). The 
date of the Exodus is variously given, as b. o. 1648 (Hales), 
1652 (Poole), 1491 'Usher, Kalisch), and 1320 (Lepsius). 



64 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

of Heliopolis as the city to which the leader 
belonged, and the assignment to him of priestly 
rank, which arises naturally out of the confu- 
sion between Moses and Joseph (Gen. xli. 
45) ; (4) the employment of the polluted per- 
sons for a time in forced labor ; (5) the con- 
viction of Amenophis that in resisting the pol- 
luted he was " fighting against the gods ; " 
(6) his fear for the safety of his young son, 
which recalls to our thoughts the last and most 
awful of the plagues ; (7) the sending away 
of the priests " naked," which seems an ex- 
aggeration of the " spoiling of the Egyptians ;" 
and (8) the occurrence of the name " Ram- 
eses " in the Egyptian royal house, which 
harmonizes with its employment at the time 
as a local designation (Ex. i. 11 ; xii. 37). 

Another curious account of the Exodus was 
given by Hecataeus, a Greek of Abdera, who 
flourished in the time of Alexander, and was 
familiar with Ptolemy Lagi, the first Greek 
king of Egypt. This writer, as reported by 
Diodorus, 1 said : — 

" Once, when a plague broke out in Egypt, the 
people generally ascribed the affliction to the anger 
Account given of the gods ; for as many strangers of 
of Abder* 113 different races were dwelling in Egypt 

1 Diod. Sic. xl. 3. (The passage is preserved to us by Pho- 
tius, Blbliothec. p. 1152.) 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT . 65 

at the time, who practiced various strange customs 
in their worship and their sacrifices, it had come to 
pass that the old religious observances of the 
country had fallen into disuse. The natives, there- 
fore, believing that unless they expelled the for- 
eigners there would be no end to their sufferings, 
rose against them, and drove them out. Now the 
noblest and most enterprising joined together, and 
went (as some say) to Greece and elsewhere, under 
leaders of good repute ; the most remarkable of 
whom were Danaus and Cadmus. But the bulk 
of them withdrew to the country which is now 
called Judaea, situated at no great distance from 
Egypt, and at that time without inhabitants. The 
leader of this colony was the man called Moses, who 
was distinguished above his fellows by his wisdom 
and his courage. Having taken possession of the 
country, he built there a number of towns, and among 
them the city which is called Jerusalem, and which 
is now so celebrated. He likewise built the temple 
which they hold in so much respect, and instituted 
their religious rites and ceremonies ; besides which 
he gave them laws and arranged their form of gov- 
ernment. He divided the people into twelve tribes, 
because he regarded 12 as the most perfect num- 
ber, agreeing, as it does, with the number of months 
that complete the year. But he would not set up 
any kind of image of the Deity, because he did not 
believe that God had a human form, but regarded 
the firmament which surrounds the earth as the 
only God and Lord of all. And he made their sac- 



60 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

rifices and their habits of life quite different from 
those of other nations, introducing a misanthropic 
and inhospitable style of living, on account of the 
expulsion which he had himself suffered." 

With this may be compared the remarkable 
account in Tacitus, 1 which combines certain 
features which are Egyptian with others that 
have clearly come from the sacred narrative. 

" Most writers agree," says Tacitus, " that when 

a plague, which disfigured men's bodies, had broken 

. , . out in E^ypt, Bocchoris, the kinsr, de- 
Account of °* / r ' o' 

Tacitus. sirous of a remedy, sent and consulted 

the oracle of Ammon, which commanded him to 
purge his kingdom, by removing to foreign lands 
the afflicted persons, who were a race hateful to the 
gods. Search was therefore made, and a vast mul- 
titude being collected together, was led forth and 
left in a desert. Then Moses, one of their num- 
ber, seeing the rest stupefied with grief, advised 
them, as they were deserted both by gods and men, 
not to expect help from either, but to confide in 
Him the heavenly leader, to whose assistance they 
would no sooner trust than they would be free from 
their troubles. His words won their assent, and 
in utter ignorance they marched whither chance 
led them. Their greatest trial was the want of 
water. Death seemed drawing near, as they lay 
prostrate on the plains, when, lo ! a herd of wild 

1 Hist. v. 3. Compare the account of Lysimachus (Fr. Hist. 
Gr. vol. iii. p. 334). 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 67 

asses was seen to quit its pasture and retreat to a 
piece of rocky ground whereon a number of trees 
grew. Moses followed upon their track, and find- 
ing a patch of soil covered with grass, conjectured 
the presence of water, and succeeded in uncovering 
some copious springs. Thus refreshed they pur- 
sued their journey for six days, and on the seventh 
reached a cultivated tract, whereof they took pos- 
session, after driving out the inhabitants. Here 
they built their town and consecrated their temple." 

From the diverse manner in which the story 
is told by different authors, we may conclude 
that the Egyptians in their formal The differences 

i . , , X , . p , t and inaccura- 

nistones took no notice 01 the oc- cies of these 
currence, which sorely hurt their na- accounts ex- 
tional vanity ; but that a remem- p aine ' 
brance of it continued in the minds of the 
people, who possessed (it must be borne in 
mind) a copious contemporary literature, 1 and 
that this remembrance gradually took various 
shapes, all of them, however, more or less flat- 
tering to the Egyptians themselves, and unfair 
to their adversaries. The Hebrews were al- 
most uniformly represented as unclean persons, 
afflicted with some disease or other, and their 
Exodus was declared to be an expulsion. Gen- 
erally they were spoken of as Egyptians, which 

1 The hieratic Papyri of Egypt go back to a time anterior to 
the eighteenth dynasty. They comprise romances, epistolary 
correspondence, poems, etc. 



68 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

was not unnatural, considering their long 
sojourn in the country ; 1 but sometimes it 
was allowed that they were foreigners. 2 The 
miraculous events by which their depart- 
ure was preceded were ignored, partially or 
wholly ; but there was a pretty general consent 
as to the name of their leader, as to the char- 
acter of the laws which he gave them, and as 
to the quarter in which they obtained new set- 
tlements. The Egyptians never forgot, any 
more than the Hebrews, that there had been 
a time when the two races had dwelt . to- 
gether ; they looked on the Hebrews as a sort 
of Egyptian colony ; and while from time to 
time they claimed, on that account, a domin- 
ion over their country, they were ready gen- 
erally to extend to it that protection, which col- 
onies, according to the ideas of the ancient 
world, were entitled to require from the father- 
land. The relations between Egypt and Pal- 
estine were, for the most part, friendly from 
the time of the Exodus to the conquest of 
Egypt by the Romans. 

1 Compare Ex. ii. 19, where Reuel's daughters mistake Moses 
for "an Egyptian." 

2 See the account of Hecatseus {supra, p. 62), and compare 
Tacit. Hist. v. 2: "Some writers tell us that they (*. e. the 
Jews) were a band of Assyrians, who, being in want of terri- 
tory, first took possession of a portion of Egypt, and soon 
afterwards became the inhabitants of the parts of Syria which 
lie near to Egypt." 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 69 

In none of the profane accounts hitherto 
quoted has the remarkable event of the pas- 
sage of the Red Sea by the He- Egy p ti anver- 
brews, in their flight, obtained any J^ $ e the 
mention. There is, however, rea- lledSea - 
son to believe, that this important feature of 
the history retained a place in the recollec- 
tions of the Egyptian people, and even formed 
a subject of discussion and controversy among 
them. Artapanus, a Jewish historian, quoted 
by Alexander Polyhistor, 1 the contemporary 
of Sulla and Marius, wrote as follows : — 

" The Memphites say, that Moses, being well 
acquainted with the district, watched the ebb of the 
tide, and so led the people across the dry bed of 
the sea ; but they of Heliopolis affirm, that the king 
at the head of a vast force, and having the sacred 
animals also with him, pursued after the Jews, be- 
cause they were carrying away with them the 
riches, which they had borrowed of the Egyptians. 
Then, they say, the voice of God commanded 
Moses to smite the sea with his rod, and divide it ; 
and Moses, when he heard it, touched the water 
with it, and so the sea parted asunder, and the 
host marched through on dry ground." 

From these direct testimonies to the histori- 
cal truth of the Exodus, w r e may now turn to 
the less striking, but perhaps even more con- 

1 Fragm. Hist. Gr. vol. iii. pp. 223, 224. 



70 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

vincing, indirect evidence, which is furnished 
by the minute agreement of the sacred narra- 
tive with the known usages of Ancient Egypt. 
The narrative of Exodus tells us, in the 
first place, that shortly after the death of 
The oppression Joseph an oppression of the Israel- 

of Israel by the . x n x x . , . 

Egyptians. ites began. A new king — per- 
haps the founder of a new dynasty — claimed 
the whole race as his slaves, and proceeded 
to engage them in servile labors, placing task- 
masters over them, whose business it was 
to " make their lives bitter with hard bond- 
age" (Ex. i. 14). The work assigned to 
them consisted of brickmaking, building, and 
severe field-labor. They worked under the 
rod, the laborers being liable to be " smitten " 
by the Egyptian taskmasters as they labored 
(ii. 11), and the native officers being punished 
by flogging if the tasks of the men under 
them were not fulfilled (v. 14). On the 
brickmakers a certain " tale of bricks " was 
imposed (v. 8), which had to be completed 
daily. Straw was a material in the bricks ; 
and this was at first furnished to the laborers, 
but afterwards they were required to procure 
straw for themselves, on which they spread 
themselves over the land and gathered stubble 
(v. 12). Details are wanting with respect to 
their other employments; but in one place 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 71 

(Deut. xi. 10) we find it implied that one of 
the main hardships of the field-work was the 
toil of irrigation. 

Almost every point of this narrative is capa- 
ble of illustration from the Egyptian monu- 
ments. Notwithstanding the great A imost every 
abundance of stone in Egypt, and g^* 8 
the fact that most of the grander Sjjgg* 
buildings were constructed of this mon ~ ts - 
material, yet there was also an extensive em- 
ployment of brick in the country. 1 Pyra- 
mids, 2 houses, tombs, the walls of towns, for- 
tresses, and the sacred inclosures of temples, 
were commonly, or, at any rate, frequently, 
built of brick by the Egyptians. 3 A large 
portion of the brick-fields belonged to the 
monarch, for whose edifices bricks were made 
in them, stamped with his name. 4 Chopped 
straw was an ordinary material in the bricks, 5 
being employed as hair by modern plasterers, 
to bind them together, and make them more 

1 * Immense masses of brick are now found at Belbers, the 
modern capital of Tharkiya, i. e. Goshen, and in the adjoining 
district (Cook's Bible Commentary, vol. i. p. 252). The pyra- 
mids of Lower Egypt were not built by the Israelites, but be- 
long with few exceptions to an earlier period. — H. 

2 Herod, ii. 136. 

3 Wilkinson in Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. ii. p. 183, 2d 
ed. 

4 Rosellini, Monumenti, vol. ii. p. 252; Wilkinson, Ancient 
Egyptians, vol. ii. p. 97. 

5 Wilkinson, vol. i. p. 50; Rosellini, vol. ii. pp. 252, 259, etc. 



72 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

firm and durable. Captives and foreigners 
commonly did the work in the royal brick- 
fields ; and Egyptian taskmasters, with rods 
in their hands, watched their labors, and pun- 
ished the idle with blows at their discretion. 1 
The bastinado was a recognized punishment 
for minor offenses. 2 " Stubble " and " straw " 
both existed in Ancient Egypt, wheat being 
occasionally cut with a portion of the stalk ; 
while the remainder, or more commonly, the 
entire stalk, was left standing in the fields. 3 
And both stubble and straw have been found 
in the bricks. 4 Finally, though agricultural 
labor is in some respects light in Egypt, 5 yet 
practically, from the continued succession of 
crops, from the intense heat of the climate, 

1 Wilkinson, vol. ii. p. 42; Rosellini, vol. ii. p. 249. 

2 Wilkinson, vol. ii. p. 41. 

3 Ibid. vol. iv. pp. 5-83. 

4 Ibid. vol. i. p. 50. 

* See the wood-cuts {Bibl. Diet. vol. i. p. 326, Amer. ed.) 
which represent the servile occupations of captives in Egypt 
(taken from paintings at Thebes, in Upper Egypt): they are 
such as digging and mixing the clay, making the brick, presence 
of taskmasters with whips, counting the tale of brick, carrying 
them to the overseers, etc. The Hebrews may not be meant 
here, but their Egyptian life is illustrated as perfectly as if the 
picture had been drawn for them. — H. 

5 "The Egyptians," says Herodotus (ii. 14), "obtain the 
fruits of the field with less trouble than any other people in the 
world. They have no need to use either the plough or the 
hoe; the swine tread in their corn, and also thrash it." Com- 
pare Wilkinson's note in Rawlinson's Herod, vol. ii. p. 15, 2d 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 73 

and from the exertions needed for irrigation, 
the lot of the cultivator has always been, and 
still continues to be, a hard one. 1 

Among the other Egyptian usages intro- 
duced to our notice in Exodus, the most re- 
markable are the following : The The general 

, i picture of 

employment of chariots, on a large Egyptian cus- 

f • ^ . ~ ' , & tomsinExo- 

scale, m war (xiv. o, 7) ; the prac- uusiscon- 

> J ' , , fi ™ed by the 

tlCe 01 the King tO gO OUt tO battle monuments. 

in person (lb. 8) ; the hearing of complaints 
and transaction of business by the king in 
person (v. 15) ; the possession, by most 
Egyptians, of articles in gold and silver (xii. 
35) ; the cultivation, in spring, of the follow- 
ing crops chiefly — wheat, barley, flax, and 
rye, or spelt (ix. 32) ; the keeping of cattle, 
partly in the fields, partly in stables (ix. 3, 
19) ; the storing of water in vessels of wood 
and stone (vii. 19) ; the employment of mid- 
wives (i. 15-21) ; the use of the papyrus for 
boats (ii. 3), of furnaces (ix. 8), ovens (viii. 
3), kneading-troughs (lb.), walking-sticks 
(vii. 10, 12), hand-mills (xi. 5), bitumen (ii. 
3), and pitch (lb.). To these the following 
may be added from the later books of the 
Pentateuch — the necessary employment of 
irrigation in agriculture (Deut. xi. 10) ; the 

1 See Kalisch, Comment, on Exodus, p. 10 ; and compare Wil- 
kinson, vol. iv. pp. 41-101. 



74 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

use, as common articles of food, of fish, cu- 
cumbers, melons, onions, garlic, and leeks 
(Num. xi. 5) ; and the practice of the kings 
to keep large studs of horses (Deut. xvii. 
16). 

Now here again, as in the later chapters of 
Genesis, almost every custom recorded can be 
single excep- confirmed either from the ancient 
Dy pr c e°sent rmed accounts of Egyptian manners 
practice. which have come down to us, or 

from the monuments, or from both. The only 
exception, of any importance, is the employ- 
ment of midwives, which was probably rare, 
as it is in the East generally, and which was 
also of a nature that would have been felt to 
render it unfit for representation. Even here, 
however, where ancient illustration fails, a 
strong confirmation of the narrative has been 
obtained by modern inquiry, the curious ex- 
pression, " when ye see them upon the stools," 
being in remarkable accordance with the mod- 
ern Egyptian practice, as stated by Mr. Lane. 1 
" Two or three days," he says, " before the 
expected time of delivery, the layah (mid- 
wife) conveys to the house the kursee elwild- 
deh, a chair of a peculiar form, upon which 
the patient is to be seated during the birth." 

The monuments show that in Ancient Egypt 

1 Modern Egyptians, vol. iii. p. 142. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 75 

by far the most important arm of the military 
service was the chariot force. The king, the 
princes, and all the chiefs of importance fought 
from chariots. 1 Diodorus made the number 
of them in the army of Sesostris, 27,000, 2 and 
though this is a gross exaggeration, it shows 
the feeling of the Greeks as to the very exten- 
sive employment of chariots by the earlier 
monarchs. Cavalry were employed to a very 
small extent, if at all ; 3 and though this, at 
first sight, may seem at variance with the 
Mosaic narrative (Ex. xiv. 9, 17, 18, 23, etc. ; 
xv. 1), yet a careful examination of the orig- 
inal text will lead to the conclusion that the 
force which pursued the Israelites was com- 
posed of chariots and infantry only. 4 The 
practice of the king to lead out his army 
in person, is abundantly evident, 5 and will 



i Wilkinson, vol. i. pp. 335-341; Kosellini, vol. ii. p. 240. 

2 Diod. Sic. i. 54. 

3 Rosellini inclines to the belief that the ancient Egyptians 
had no cavalry (vol. ii. pp. 232-259). Sir G. Wilkinson thinks 
they may have had a cavalry force, but that it was scanty (vol. 
i. pp. 289, 290). Both agree that no cavalry are represented on 
the monuments. Herodotus once speaks of an Egyptian com- 
mander as on horseback (ii. 162). Diodorus, on the other hand, 
gives Sesostris a numerous cavalry (i. 54). 

4 See the arguments of Hengstenberg (pp. 127-129), and 
Kalisch {Comment, on Exodus, pp. 182-184). The term trans- 
lated " horsemen " in our Version, refers pi-obably to the riders 
in the chariots. 

5 Herod, ii. 102; Wilkinson, i. pp. 63, 65, 83, &c. 



76 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

scarcely be doubted by any. It was indeed a 
practice universal at the time among all Orien- 
tal sovereigns. The hearing of complaints and 
pronouncing of judgments by the king in per- 
son, was also very usual throughout the East ; 
and the existence of the custom in Egypt is il- 
lustrated by many passages in ancient authors. 1 
The representations with respect to Egyp- 
tian agriculture, feeding of cattle, food, dress, 
and domestic habits are similarly borne out 
both by the ancient remains and the ancient 
authorities. The cultivation depicted on the 
monuments is especially that of wheat, flax, 
barley, and another grain, which is believed 
to correspond with the cussemeth, " rye," or 
" spelt," of the Hebrews. 2 Fish and vege- 
tables formed the chief food of the lower 
classes ; and among the vegetables especially 
affected, gourds, cucumbers, onions, and gar- 
lic are distinctly apparent. 3 According to 
Herodotus, some tribes of the Egyptians lived 
entirely on fish, which abounded in the Nile, 
the canals, and the lakes, especially in the 
Birket-el-Keroun, or Lake Moeris. 4 The mon- 
uments represent the catching, salting, and 

1 See Herod, ii. 115, 121, § 3; 129, 173. 

2 Wilkinson, vol. ii. p. 398; vol. iv. pp. 85-99. 

3 Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 370-374; and compare vol. i. p. 277, and 
Herod, ii. 125. 

x 4 Herod, ii. 92, 93, 149; iii. 91. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. . 77 

eating of this viand. 1 We also see on the 
monuments that cattle were kept, both in the 
field, where they were liable to be overtaken 
by the inundation, 2 and also in stalls or sheds. 3 
The wide-spread possession, by the Egyptians, 
of articles in gold and silver, vases, goblets, 
necklaces, armlets, bracelets, earrings, and 
finger-rings is among the facts most copiously 
attested by the extant remains, 4 and is also 
illustrated by the ancient writers, who even 
speak of so strange an article as " a golden 
footpan." 5 The employment of furnaces, 
ovens, and kneading-troughs, the common 
practice of carrying staves or walking-sticks, 
and the use of hand-mills for grinding corn, are 

1 Wilkinson, vol. iii. pp. 53, 56; ii. p. 401. 

2 Ibid. vol. iv. pp. 101, 102. 

3 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 134. Compare Cambridge Essays for 1858, 
p. 249. 

4 "The ornaments of gold found in Egypt," says Sir G. 
Wilkinson, " consist of rings, bracelets, armlets, necklaces, ear- 
rings, and numerous trinkets belonging to the toilet" (vol. 
iii. p. 225). And again, " Gold and" silver vases, statues, and 
other objects of gold and silver, of silver inlaid with gold, and 
of bronze inlaid with the precious metals, were also common at 
the same time " (Ibid.). Compare pp. 370-377. 

* The Egyptian Museums (London, Paris, Berlin) contain 
almost as great a variety of ornaments for personal decoration 
(ivory, gold, silver), as are known to the fashions of modern life. 
They have been found in Egyptian tombs, pyramids, and mum- 
my-pits and many of them must be as old as the age of the 
Pharaohs and the pyramids. — H. 

6 Herod, ii. 172. 



78 HISTOKICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

likewise certified, either by representations or 
by remains found in the country. 1 

The storing of water in vessels of wood and 
stone, which is implied in Ex. vii. 19, is a pe- 
Pecuiiarcus- culiarly Egyptian custom, scarcely 
^"storing of known elsewhere. The abundance 
water - of water in the Nile, and its wide 

diffusion by means of canals, render reser- 
voirs, in the ordinary sense of the word, un- 
necessary in Egypt ; and water would never 
be stored, if it were not for the necessity of 
purifying in certain seasons the turbid fluid 
furnished by the Nile, in order to render it' a 
palatable beverage. For this purpose it has 
always been, and is still, usual to keep the 
Nile water in jars, stone troughs, or tubs, un- 
til the sediment is deposited, and the fluid 
rendered fit for drinking. 2 

The practice of making boats out of the 
papyrus, recorded in Ex. ii. 3, 3 is also spe- 
2. Boats of P a- cia % Egyptian, and was not in 
pyrus. vogue elsewhere. It is distinctly 

mentioned by Herodotus, Plutarch, and many 

1 On the employment of furnaces, see Wilkinson, vol. iii. p. 
164; of ovens and kneading-troughs, vol. v. p. 385; of walk- 
ing-sticks, vol. iii. pp. 386, 387; and of hand-mills, vol. ii. p. 
118. 

2 Wilkinson, vol. iv. p. 100; Pococke, Travels, vol. i. p. 312. 

3 The word rendered " bulrushes "in our Version (gomeh), is 
generally admitted to signify some kind of papyrus — probably 
not that from which paper was made, but a coarser kind. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 79 

other ancient writers, 1 and is thought to be 
traceable on the monuments. 2 The caulking 
of these boats with pitch and bitumen, a prac- 
tice not mentioned anywhere but in Exodus, 
is highly probable in itself ; and is so far in 
accordance with the remains, that both pitch 
and bitumen are found to have been used by 
the Egyptians. 3 Bitumen, which is not an 
Egyptian product, appears to have been im- 
ported from abroad, and was even sometimes 
taken as tribute from the Mesopotamian 
tribes, 4 with whom the ancient Egyptians had 
frequent contests. 

In illustration of the extensive possession 
of horses by the early kings of Egypt, it will 
be sufficient to adduce a passage 3. Extensive 

t-n • i i breeding of 

from Diodorus, who says that " the horses, 
monarchs before Sesostris maintained, along 
the banks of the Nile between Memphis and 
Thebes, two hundred stables, in each of which 
were kept a hundred horses." 5 Herodotus 
also notices that, prior to the reign of Sesos- 
tris, horses and carriages were very abundant 
in Egypt, but that subsequently they became 

1 Herod, ij. 96; Plut. De Isid. et Os. § 18; Theophrast. De 
Planth, iv. 9; Plin. H. N. xiii. 11; etc. 

2 Wilkinson, vol. ii. pp. 60, 185. 

3 Ibid. vol. iii. p. 186; Rosellini, vol. i. p. 219. 

4 Wilkinson, in Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. i. p. 254. 

5 Diod. Sic. i. 



80 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

comparatively uncommon, since the intersec- 
tion of the whole country by canals rendered 
it unsuitable for their employment. 1 They 
were still, no doubt, bred and employed, and 
even exported (1 Kings x. 29), to a certain 
extent ; but from about the time of the nine- 
teenth dynasty, Egypt ceased to be a great 
horse-breeding country. 

Further, it may be observed that the state 
of the arts among the Hebrews when they 
Hebrew art at quitted Egypt, which has some- 
*uch E af mUt times been objected to as unduly 
Seirnun 11 advanced, is in entire accordance 
Egypt. with the condition of art in Egypt 

at the period. The Egyptian civilization of 
the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties em- 
braces all the various arts and manufactures 
necessary for the construction of the Taber- 
nacle and its appurtenances, for the elaborate 
dress of the priests, and for the entire cere- 
monial described in the later books of the 
Pentateuch. The employment of writing, the 
arts of cutting and setting gems, the power of 
working in metals — and especially in gold, in 
silver, and in bronze, — skill in carving wood, 
the tanning and dyeing of leather, the manu- 
facture of fine linen, the knowledge of em- 
broidery, the dyeing of textile fabrics, the 

i Herod, ii. 108. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 81 

employment of gold thread, the preparation 
and use of highly-scented unguents, are parts 
of the early civilization of Egypt, and were 
probably at their highest perfection about the 
time that the Exodus took place. 1 Although 
the Hebrews, while in Egypt, were, for the 
most part, mere laborers and peasants, still it 
was natural that some of them, and, even 
more, that some of the Egyptians who accom- 
panied them (Ex. xiii. 38), should have been 
acquainted with the various branches of trade 
and manufactures established in Egypt at the 
time. Hence there is nothing improbable in 
the description given in the Pentateuch of the 
Ark and its surroundings, since the Egyptian 
art of the time was quite equal to their pro- 
duction. 

The sojourn of the Israelites in the wilder- 
ness for forty years removed them so entirely, 
during that space, from contact No historical 

. 1 ° - . . . illustration of 

with any historic people, that we the sojourn in 

„ _ . .. the wilderness 

cannot expect to mid, in the pro- possible. 
fane records that have come down to us, any- 

1 See Hengstenberg, JEgypten und Mote, ch. v. pp. 133-143. 

* The proper title of the above work is Die Slicker Jfose's 
und Aegypten (1st ed. 1841). See also R. S. Poole on " Egypt," 
in Smith's Bible Dictionary (1863). Dr. J. P. Thompson adds 
an important supplement in Hurd and Houghton's ed. (1867). 
The two writers furnish a very complete view of the Egyptology 
of the subject. — H. 
6 



82 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

thing to confirm or illustrate the sacred nar- 
rative. That narrative must rest, first, on the 
profound conviction of its truthfulness which 
remained forever impressed upon the con- 
sciousness of the people ; secondly, on its 
geographic accuracy, and on the perfect ac- 
cordance with fact of what may be called its 
local coloring ; x and, thirdly, on the quasi- 
certainty that it is the production of an eye- 
witness. It may be added, that the circum- 
stances recorded are too little creditable to the 
Hebrew people for any national historiogra- 
pher to have invented them. 

Recent criticism has attacked chiefly the 

numbers in the narrative. 2 There is certainly 

a difficulty in understanding how 

A difficulty / -« 

connected with a population exceeding two mill- 
ions could have supported itself, 
together with its flocks and herds, in a tract 
which, at the present day, barely suffices to 
sustain some tribes of Bedouins numbering, 
perhaps, six thousand souls. 3 Had the narra- 
tive made no mention of miraculous mainte- 
nance, this difficulty would have been almost 
insurmountable. As, however, the writer ex- 
pressly declares that a miraculous supply of 

1 See Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, part i. pp. 1-57. 

2 Colenso, The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua Critically 
Examined, pp. 31-138. 

3 Stanley, Bin. and Pal. p. 22. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 83 

food was furnished daily during the whole 
period of the sojourn to the entire people, the 
main objection disappears. We have only to 
suppose that, although the tract, compared 
with Egypt, and even with Palestine, was a 
desert, yet that it was considerably better sup- 
plied with water, and so with pasturage, 
than it is at the present day. There are 
many indications that this was the case. 1 
The Israelites apparently needed a miraculous 
supply of water twice only. If so, wells 
must have been numerous and abundant, 
water being to be found in most places at a 
little distance from the surface. But wherever 
in the desert this is the case, there will occur 
oases, and a sufficient vegetation for flocks and 
herds, of a considerable size. The Israelites, 
no doubt, spread themselves widely over the 
peninsula during the forty years ; and as the 
area of the desert is at least fifteen hundred 
square miles, the numerous flocks and herds 
wherewith they entered the country may have 
maintained themselves, though, it is to be re- 
marked, we are not told whether their numbers 
diminished or no. 

In any case, a difficulty which is merely 
numerical is of no great account. Numbers, 

1 Stanley, pp. 23-27; and Hayman, in Blbl. Diet. vol. iii. 
pp. 1752-1754; and vol. iv. pp. 3519, 3520, Amer. ed. 



84 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

which, in early times, so far as we have any 
evidence on the subject, 1 were always ex- 
pressed, in some abbreviated form, by conven- 
tional signs, are far more liable to corruption 
than any other parts of ancient manuscripts ; 
and the numerical statements of the sacred 
writers have undoubtedly suffered in tran- 
scription to a large extent. The " six hun- 
dred thousand that were men " of Ex. xii. 37, 
may be a corruption of an original " one hun- 
dred thousand " or " sixty thousand " ; and 
the numbers in Num. i., ii., may have suf- 
fered similarly. The great fact recorded, 
which stands out as historically true, and 
which no petty criticism can shake, is the exit 
from Egypt of a considerable tribe, 
one us.on. ^ progenitors of the later Hebrew 
nation and their settlement in Palestine, after 
a sojourn of some duration in the wilderness. 
Of this fact the Hebrews and Egyptians were 
equally well convinced ; and as both nations 
enjoyed a contemporary literature, and had 
thus the evidence on the point of witnesses 
living at the time, only an irrational skepticism 
can entertain a doubt respecting it. 

1 On the numerical signs used in Ancient Egypt, see Wilkin- 
son in Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. ii. p. 51, and compare An- 
cient Egyptians, vol. iv. pp. 130, 131. On the signs used by 
the early Babylonians, see Rawlinson's Ancient Monarchies, 
vol. i. pp. 129-131. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 85 

[* The later explorations of the Sinaitic 
peninsula, show that the alleged difficulty of 
subsistence in the case of the Israelites, during 
the forty years in the wilderness, has been very 
much exaggerated. The Rev. F. W. Holland, 
for example, who has repeatedly traversed 
that region, says : " Large tracts of the north- 
ern portion of the plateau of the Tih, which 
are now desert, were evidently formerly under 
cultivation. The Gulf of Suez (probably by 
means of an artificial canal connecting it with 
the Bitter Lakes) once extended nearly fifty 
miles farther north than it does at present, 
and the mountains of Palestine were well 
clothed with trees. Thus there formerly ex- 
isted a rain-making area of considerable ex- 
tent, which must have added largely to the 
dews and rains of Sinai. Probably, also, the 
peninsula itself was formerly much more 
thickly wooded. 

" The amount of vegetation and herbage in 
the peninsula, even at the present time, has 
been very much underrated ; and a slight in- 
crease in the present rain-fall would produce 
an enormous addition to the amount of pas- 
turage. I have several times seen the whole 
face of the country, especially the wadies, 
marvelously changed in appearance by a 
single shower. 



86 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

" It is a great mistake to suppose that the 
convent gardens at the foot of Jebel Musa, 
and those in Wady Feirdn, and at Tor, mark 
the only three spots where any considerable 
amount of cultivation could exist in the penin- 
sula. Hundreds of old monastic gardens, with 
copious wells and springs, are scattered over 
the mountains throughout the granite dis- 
tricts ; and I could mention at least twenty 
streams which are perennial, excepting per- 
haps in unusually dry seasons. 

" It has been said that the present physical 
conditions of the country are such as to render 
it utterly impossible that the events recorded 
in the book of Exodus can ever have occurred 
there. It is wonderful, however, how appar- 
ent difficulties melt away as our acquaintance 
with the country increases. I see no difficulty 
myself in the provision of sufficient pastur- 
age for the flocks and herds, if, as I have 
shown, there are good reasons for supposing 
the rain-fall was in former days larger than 
it is at present ; and with regard to the cattle, 
I will point out one important fact, which 
appears to me to have been overlooked, 
namely, that they were probably used as 
beasts of burden ; and, in addition to other 
things, carried their own water, sufficient for 
several days, slung in water-skins by their 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 87 

side, just as Sir Samuel Baker found them 
doing at the present day in Abyssinia." * 
The statements of Bishop Colenso, so differ- 
ent from this testimony of experienced travel- 
lers, are exaggerated and misleading.] 

1 * See Recent Explorations in the Peninsula of Sinai, by 
Rev. F. W. Holland (18G9); and statements of the same writer 
in Smith's Bibl. Diet. vol. iv. p. 3640, Amer. ed. — H.- 



88 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 



CHAPTER IV. 

JOSHUA TO SAMUEL. 

[* The book of Joshua relates especially to 
the land of Canaan and its distribution among 
the twelve tribes. Hence this book is pecul- 
iarly topographical in its character ; and the 
more so because the entire political and relig- 
ious life of the Hebrews was interwoven like 
a net-work with the geography of the country. 
This book in particular, says the great ge- 
ographer, Ritter, has been subjected to the 
severest scrutiny, inasmuch as the scene of it 
lies to such an extent on the west of the Jordan 
now so fully explored. Its notices not only of 
distinct regions, but of valleys, mountains, vil- 
lages, have been confirmed, often with surpris- 
ing certainty and particularity. The great 
geographer refers, as an example of this, to 
Joshua's second campaign in the south of Pal- 
estine (see Josh. xi. 16 f., and xv. 21 ff.). 
He shows that the divisions of the country 
there into five parts, the scene of that expe- 
dition, rests upon a basis of geographical 
conditions which none but an eye-witness 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 89 

could have remarked. He shows in addition 
to this general accuracy in the outline, that 
the specialities are equally true ; that many 
of the cities and towns mentioned in the book 
retain to this day their ancient names, and 
also occur together, precisely as the sacred 
writers represent them as arranged of old. 1 

Another similar example may be drawn 
from Saul's last and fatal battle on Gilboa (1 
Sam. xxxi. 1 ff., and 2 Sam. i. 1 ff.), which 
chronology assigns to B. c. 1055, later but little 
than the traditionary age of the siege of Troy. 
Yet the scene of it lies now mapped out before 
us on the face of the country as distinctly as if 
the battle had been fought in our own times. 
All the places (Gilboa, Jezreel, Shunem, Beth- 
she an ; Aphek only, 1 Sam. xxix. 1, as yet to 
be excepted) have been identified under their 
old names, and at such points precisely as the 
intimations of the history and the course of 
the battle presuppose. A person may start 
from any one of them and make the circuit 
of them all in a few hours. Such examples 
are becoming every day more and more fre- 
quent in the progress of Palestine explora- 
tions. As geographers and tourists traverse 
the land in every direction, and ask the names 

1 * Hitter's Einblick auf Palastina u. seine Christllche BevoU 
ierung (Berlin. 1852). — H. 



90 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

of towns, villages, brooks, heaps of ruins, and 
the like, they have the old names given back 
to them from the mouth of the people, though 
unheard of (out of the country) since last 
mentioned in these oldest records of human 
history. 1 

We have a similar testimony to the geo- 
graphical accuracy of the Pentateuch fur- 
nished by Messrs. Holland and Palmer, who 
have lately explored so thoroughly the Sin- 
aitic Peninsula. " The encampment by the 
Red Sea, mentioned in Num. xxxiii. 10, proved 
that the Israelites kept down the coast after 
crossing the Red Sea somewhere in the neigh- 
borhood of Suez. They first ' went three days 
in the wilderness, and found no water ' (Ex. xv. 
22). They then came to Marah, where the 
water was bitter, so that they could not drink 
of it (23), and from there they removed to 
Elim, whence they removed to their encamp- 
ment by the Red Sea. Now the traveller to 
this day, on his journey to Mount Sinai, after 
traversing a long strip of barren desert with- 

l * For gleanings on this subject of the topography of Scrip- 
ture, see Van de Velde (Travels in Syr. and Pal. vol. ii. p. 
.368 ff.; Stanley, Sin. and Pal. p. 339, Amer. ed.), Porter's 
H tndbook, ii. 355 ff. ; Thomson's Land and Boole, ii. 141 ff., and 
the writer's Illustrations of Scripture (gathered in the Holy 
Land), pp. 118-126. For the results of some of the more recent 
explorations in the Desert of Sinai and in Palestine generally, 
see especially The Recovery of Jerusalem, pp. 1-435 (London 
and New York, 1871). — H. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 91 

out water that extends down the coast, comes 
to a district where the water is brackish and 
unwholesome ; a day's journey next brings him 
to an elevated plain, where there are wells of 
water and palm-trees ; and then he descends 
again to the sea-coast, having been forced to 
pass round the back of a mountain, which 
reaches out into the sea. Thus the character 
of the country and distances from point to 
point, exactly agree with the Bible narrative. 
And this is the case the whole way to Mount 
Sinai ; for next comes a large plain, that an- 
swers well to the wilderness of Sin, where the 
Israelites were first fed with manna (Ex. xvi. 
1) ; and from the plains one of the principal 
wadies affords an easy road to Mount Sinai, 
a day's journey from which is a spot which 
tradition marks as the site of the battle of 
Rephidim (Ex. xvii. 8 ff.), and which agrees 
well with the short description we have of 
that battle-field. So mountainous is the 
country, that there is only one other route 
which could possibly have been followed by 
the Israelites ; and the mention of the encamp- 
ment by the sea (Num. xxiii. 10) renders that 
almost impossible. Thus the features of the 
country bear out and explain the Bible narra- 
tive ; and research here, as elsewhere in Bible 
lands, confirms our belief in the truth of that 



92 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

history of God's chosen people which has been 
given us in the Holy Scriptures." *] 

The period treated in the books of Joshua 
and Samuel is the darkest in the whole history 
isolated posi- of the Hebrew people. The fugi- 
iiebrewfafter tives from Egypt, who by Divine 
the Exodus. a ^j e g ec t ec [ a lodgment in the land 

of Canaan, under their great leader, Joshua, 
were engaged for some hundreds of years in 
a perpetual struggle for existence with the 
petty tribes among whom they had intruded 
themselves, and during this entire period were 
removed from connection with those civilized 
nations with whom writing was a familiar 
practice, and the recording of contemporane- 
ous history an established usage. The Moab- 
ites, Ammonites, Amorites, Canaanites, Midi- 
anites, Philistines, with whom the Israelites 
contended with eventual success for the space 
of three or four hundred years after the death 
of Moses, were races either absolutely without 
a literature, or with none that has come down 
to Us. 2 It is true that history continued to be 
written during the period under consideration 

i * Sinai and Jerusalem ; or, Scenes from Bible Lands, by 
Rev. F. W. Holland (London, 1872). — H. 

a The stele of Mesha — the only remnant of the literature of 
any of these races that has reached our times — belongs to a 
later period than that here treated of. 

* See Appendix No. 2, at the end of the volume. - H. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 93 

in the great and civilized kingdoms of Egypt, 
Babylonia, and Assyria ; but these nations 
were content with writing their own histories, 
and did not trouble themselves with that of 
their neighbors, unless they were brought into 
direct contact with them. Now it appears dis- 
tinctly that no such contact took place. The 
Mesopotamian powers declined in military 
strength after the time of Chedor-laomer. 
Assyria shook off the yoke of Babylon, and 
the two nations became engaged in long wars 
against each other. The Assyrian records 
show that during the period assigned by 
Scripture to the Hebrew judges and the early 
Hebrew kings, Assyrian expeditions were 
either confined within the Euphrates, or at 
any rate went no further than Cappadocia 
and Upper Syria, or the country about Anti- 
och and Aleppo. 1 And though Egypt seems 
to have continued for some time after the 
Exodus to be a great military state, and to 
have conducted expeditions into Northern 
Syria, and even across the Euphrates, 2 yet in 
Southern Syria she cared only to Negative a C - 

, . , cord of their 

maintain her possession 01 the coast records with 

i il ,i -!_• the Egyptian 

route, and attempted no SUOJUga- and Assyrian. 

1 See Ancient Monarchies, vol. ii. pp. 312-327. 

2 Lenormant, Manuel d J IIistoire,xo\. ii. pp. 436-448; Wilkin- 
son in Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. ii. pp. 314, 315. 



94 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

tion of the tribes inhabiting the highlands on 
either side of the Jordan. As the Hebrew 
records are silent with respect to Egypt and 
Assyria during this entire period, so the Egyp- 
tian and Assyrian inscriptions are silent with 
respect to the Hebrews. If there is not a 
positive, there is a negative accord, between 
them. From the Hebrews' account of them- 
selves we gather that during their long period 
of struggle with the Canaanitish nations, they 
were unmolested by either Egypt or Assyria ; 
from the accounts given by the Egyptians and 
Assyrians of the same period, we learn that 
they led no expeditions into the country occu- 
pied by the Hebrews during these centuries. 

It is not till we approach the close of the 
period under consideration that any positive 
Tradition of historical illustration of this portion 
iifhlheca^ °^ ^ ne sacre ^ narrative becomes pos- 
se a rvedln pre " sible. One curious tradition throws 
North Africa. a gi eam f light on the earlier his- 
tory ; but otherwise antiquity is silent, until 
we come to the reign of David. The tradi- 
tion intended is one that appears to have been 
current in the western part of North Africa, 
where the natives not only believed themselves 
to be of Canaanite extraction, 1 but expressly 

1 S. Augustine says of the rustics in his part of Africa: "In- 
terrogati quid sint, Punice respondent, Chanani" (Ep. ad Rom.). 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. ' 95 

derived themselves from certain fugitives, who 
were (they said) expelled from Palestine by 
44 Joshua, the son of Nun, the plunderer." So 
strong was the conviction upon the point, that 
at Tingis, or Tigisis, the modern Tangiers, 
there were erected near the great fountain of 
the place, two pillars of white marble bearing 
an inscription to this effect in the Phoenician 
language and character, which remained to 
the times of the Lower Empire. 1 

By the time of David a civilization had 
arisen in the near vicinity of the Hebrews — 
whether derived from theirs or not Profane testi . 
is uncertain — and a literature had ^ct y to r>a- le " 
come into existence, some scanty Tld ' swars - 
fragments of which have descended the stream 
of time to our day. In the Phoenician towns 
on the coast of the Mediterranean, and again 
in the great city of Damascus in the interior, 
the practice of recording the names of their 
kings and the chief events of their reigns, 
seems to have begun about this time ; and 
classical writers have preserved to us certain 
notices drawn from these sources, in which 
David and his acts are mentioned. David, it 
will be remembered — according to the narra- 
tive in Samuel, — after chastising the Philis- 

1 See Procop. Bell. Vandal, ii. 10 ; and compare Mor. Choren, 
Hist. Armen. i. 18, and Suidas ad voc. Canaan. 



96 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

tines, made war upon Hadadezer, king of 
Zobah, and defeated him (2 Sam. viii. 3), 
whereupon the Syrians of Damascus came to 
the aid of Hadadezer, and a war followed be- 
tween the Israelites and these Syrians, which 
terminated in the complete defeat of the lat- 
ter, and their reduction to the position of 
tributaries. This war was mentioned by Nic- 
olas of Damascus, the friend of Augustus 
Caesar, who evidently derived his account of it, 
not from the Jewish Scriptures, but from the 
Testimony of records of his native place. " After 

Nicolaus Da- 1 . , , .. . 1 _ 

mascenus. this, he said, " there was a certain 
Hadad, a native Syrian, who had great power : 
he ruled over Damascus, and all Syria, except- 
ing Phoenicia. He likewise undertook a war 
with David, the King of Judaea, and con- 
tended against him in a number of battles ; 
in the last of them all, which was by the river 
Euphrates, and in which he suffered defeat, 
showing himself a prince of the greatest cour- 
age and prowess." x 

The ancient Phoenician historiographers, 
whose works were carefully studied, and rep- 
Testimony of resented in Greek, by two writers 
Eupoiemoa. of the time of Alexander the Great 
— Dius and Menander of Ephesus — spoke 
(we are told) of a Hiram, King of Tyre, as 

1 Nic. Dam. Fr. 31. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 97 

reigning at this time, and appear to have 
noticed certain transactions in which he was 
engaged with David ; at least Enpolemon 
must, it would seem, have drawn from this 
source, when he spoke of a war between 
Hiram and David, which is not mentioned in 
the Bible. And it is even probable that the 
entire account of David's wars in the same 
author, which is certainly not drawn from 
either Samuel or Chronicles, came also from 
this same quarter. " David," said Eupole- 
mon, 1 " reduced the Syrians, who dwelt by 
the river Euphrates, and Commagene, and the 
Assyrians and Phoenicians who dwelt in the 
land of Gilead ; and he made war on the 
Edomites, and the Ammonites, and Moabites, 
and Iturceans and Nabataians and Nabdwans ; 
moreover, he also made an expedition against 
Suron (Huram or Hiram), king of Tyre and 
Phoenicia, and compelled all these people to 
pay tribute to the Jews." This narrative, 
which seems clearly to be derived from non- 
Jewish sources, is an important testimony to the 
truth of the history related in 2 Sam. viii. and 
ix. It confirms that history by a distinct 
mention of the chief conquests of David 
recorded in the Bible, while it adds to them 

1 See the fragments of Polvhistor in the Fr. Hist. Gr. vol. iii. 
p. 225; Fr. 18. 



98 HISTOKICAL ILLUSTRATIONS' 

several others, which, though not recorded in 
Scripture, are intrinsically not improbable. 

Besides these direct testimonies, there are 
a certain number of incidental allusions to the 
Early preemi- condition of foreign nations in this 
Sver C Ty f re S, c d on n - portion of the Sacred Volume, 
firmed. which admit of being tested by a 

comparison with profane records, with a result 
which is in every case favorable to the his- 
torical accuracy of the Biblical writers. For 
instance, it is evident to the careful reader of 
Scripture that, in the earlier portion of the 
period under consideration, a preeminence 
over the other Phoenician cities is assigned to 
Sidon — "Great Sidon," as she is called, 1 — 
while from the time of David this preeminency 
passes away, and Tyre steps into the place 
which Sidon had previously occupied. Now 
this shift in the balance of Phoenician power, 
this transfer of the chief authority from one 
city to another, is completely borne out by 
profane history, which tells us, in the first 
place, that Sidon was the mother-city of all 
Phoenicia, 2 and further indicates in a variety 
of ways her early superiority over the rest of 

1 Josh. xi. 8; xix. 28. Note the frequent mention of Sidon 
in Joshua and Judges (Josh. xiii. 4, 6; Judg. i. 31; iii. 3; 
x. 12; xviii. 7, 28); and contrast the single mention of Tyre 
(Josh. xix. 29). 

2 Justin. Hist, xviii. 3. Strab. Geograph. i. 2, § 33- 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 99 

the Phoenician towns. 1 On the other hand 
it is universally acknowledged that Tyre had 
the preeminence in later times ; and if we were 
to fix the date of the revolution from profane 
history only, we should have to place it about 
B. C. 1050, or a little earlier, — that is, shortly 
before the accession of David. 

Again, the narrative of Joshua represents 
to us the nation of the Hittites as being, at th'e 
time of the conquest of Canaan, Power of 

Hittites con- 

the principal power in Upper Syria, firmed. 
or the country between Palestine and the 
Euphrates. 2 This fact is abundantly con- 
firmed by the Egyptian remains, which show 
us the Hittites (Shetci) as the chief opponent 
of Egypt, in the valley of the Orontes, during 
the period occupied by the nineteenth and 
twentieth dynasties of Manetho, 3 a period 
which must certainly include within it the 
judgeship of Joshua. The later power of 
the Hittites, as witnessed by the Assyrian 
inscriptions, accords with the Scriptural ac- 
count, but does not directly confirm it, since 
the earliest Assyrian record 4 in which the 

1 The early Egyptian inscriptions which mention the Phoe- 
nician towns give Sidon the first place. Homer mentions Sidon 
repeatedly, but never Tyre. 

2 See Josh. i. 4; ix. 1 ; xii. 8. 

3 Lenormant, Manuel, vol. i. pp. 399-441. 

4 Inscription of Tiglath-Pileser I., date about B.C. 1125. 



100 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

Hittites obtain mention is not anterior to the 
twelfth century B. C, or from two to three 
centuries after Joshua. 

As the Hittites appear in Joshua to be the 
dominant race to the north of Galilee, so does 
Philistine the whole narrative from Exodus 

power con- 
firmed, to Samuel represent the Philistines 

as the dominant people of the tract be- 
tween Judaea and Egypt. 1 Here, once more, 
the Egyptian records agree, since they assign 
to the Philistines the same sort of lead among 
the enemies of Egypt in the south which 
belongs to the Hittites in the regions of the 
north. 2 Indeed, so sensible are the Egyp- 
tians of their strength that they finally 
consent to make terms with this people, and 
guarantee them in the possession of the rich 
tract about Gaza, Ashdod, and Ascalon. 3 

Enough is not known of the manners and 
customs of the Canaanitish races from any 
source independent of Scripture to permit 
much illustration of the period between Moses 
Manners and and David, from a consideration of 

customs de- . -. <■ ■ i • • • 

picted, con- the usages oi these nations mci- 
prS>abie. r dentally noticed by the sacred writ- 
ers. Still there are a few such points to 

1 See Josh. xiii. 3. Judg. iii. 3; x. 7; xiii. 1. 1 Sam. iv. 
xiii. 5-22, etc. 

2 Brugsch, Histoire d 1 Egypte, pp. 185-187. 

3 Lenormant, Manuel, vol. i. p. 144. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 101 

which the reader's attention may be called. 
The military power of the northern races, 
the Hittites and their allies, is represented in 
Joshua (xi. 4) as consisting especially in the 
multitude of their chariots. This agrees with 
the Egyptian accounts, which similarly make 
the chariots of the Sheta their main force. 1 
The worship of Ashtoreth by the Canaanitish 
nations generally (Judg. ii. 11-13), accords 
with a hieroglyphic inscription of Rameses II. 
which mentions Astert as a Hittite divinity. 2 
The general character of the desert tribes, 
especially the Midianites and the Amalekites, 
as depicted in Judges (vi.-viii.), resembles 
closely the picture which the Egyptians draw 
of the Shaso. The gradual increase of Philis- 
tine power apparent in the Scriptural narrative 
harmonizes with the parallel decline of Eg} r pt, 
which the monuments indicate. 8 The curious 
name — Shophetim, or " Judges " — borne by 
the Hebrew rulers from Othniel to Samuel, 
receives light from the parallel term Suffetes, 
found to have been applied to the chief 
magistrates of Phoenician colonies. In other 
respects, the manners and customs depicted 

1 Lenormant, p. 413. Compare Bunsen's Egypt, vol. iii. p. 
175 ; and Cambridge Essays for 58, p. 240. 

2 Bunsen, p. 180. 

3 On this decline, see Wilkinson in Rawlinson's Herodotus, 
vol. ii. p. 315; Bunsen, p. 218; Lenormant, pp. 445-451. 



102 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

can only be pronounced natural, and thor- 
oughly Oriental. The foot of the conqueror 
placed literally on the person of the conquered 
monarch (Josh. x. 24) before his execution, 
the cruel practice of mutilation (Judg. i. 6, 7), 1 
the custom of blood-feuds (Josh. xx. 3 ; Judg. 
viii. 19), the intermixture in one and the 
same country of a dominant people and 
subject tribes (Judg. i. 19-36), the hiding 
of the latter when grievously oppressed, in 
dens and caves (lb. vi. 2 ; 1 Sam. xiii. 6), 
the wearing of earrings by men (Judg. viii. 
24-26, the spying of women through a 
lattice (lb. v. 28), the employment of apo- 
logues (lb. ix. 7-15), the setting and 
solving of riddles (lb. xiv. 12-18), the 
shaving off of half the beard in derision 
(2 Sam. x. 4), these and a hundred other 
little points in the narrative are agreeable to 
the known practice of Eastern nations, and 
indicate that accuracy in details is no less a 
characteristic of the Sacred Volume than 
truthfulness in the main facts of the his- 
tory. Such accuracy is sometimes found in 
works of the imagination, where it is necessary 
in order to render them life-like, and where it 



1 * For fuller details respecting these modes of punishment 
so peculiar, see Smith's Bibl. Diet vol. iii. p. 2640 ff., Amer. 
ed.— H. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 103 

is the result of much study and contrivance ; 
but it is scarcely observable in any but a faith- 
ful and contemporary history, where it comes 
without effort, costs no thought, and scarcely 
presents itself at all distinctly to the con- 
sciousness of the writer. 



104 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 



CHAPTER V. 

KINGS AND CHRONICLES. 

The kingdom of Solomon is one of the 
most striking facts in the Biblical history. A 
Short-lived petty nation, which for some hun- 
S 1 under e dreds of years has with difficulty 

David and Sol- . . . , . 

omon. maintained a separate existence m 

the midst of warlike tribes, each of which 
has in turn exercised dominion over it and 
oppressed it, is suddenly raised by the genius 
of a soldier monarch to glory and greatness. 
An empire is established which extends from 
the Euphrates to the borders of Egypt, a 
distance of 450 miles j and this empire, rapidly 
constructed, enters almost immediately on a 
period of peace, which lasts for half a century. 
Wealth, grandeur, architectural magnificence, 
artistic excellence, commercial enterprise, a 
position of dignity among the great nations 
of the earth, 1 are enjoyed during this space; 
at the end of which there is a sudden collapse, 
— the ruling nation is split in twain, the 

1 On the real character of Solomon's kingdom, see Dean 
Stanley's article on David, in the Bibl. Diet. vol. i. p. 408; 
and vol. i. p. 551, Amer. ed. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 105 

subject races fall off, and the preeminence 
lately gained being wholly lost ; the scene 
of struggle, strife, oppression, recovery, in- 
glorious submission, and desperate effort 
recommences. To persons acquainted only 
with the history of the West, the whole 
series of events appears incredible ; the entire 
analogy of history seems against them, since 
in Occidental records they have no parallel, 
and an inclination is naturally felt to question 
their historical truth, to regard them as either 
wholly invented, or at any rate as grossly 
exaggerated. 

Bat a knowledge of the history of the East 
removes these impressions. In the East such 
a series of events is the reverse of Nume rous Ori- 
abnormal. The rapid rise of petty eDtal parallels> 
states to greatness, the sudden change of an 
oppressed into a dominant power, is the rule. 
Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, all illustrate 
it. Duration of empire when obtained is 
more irregular. Sometimes a great power, 
when once formed, holds its own for many 
centuries, e. g. Assyria, Parthia, Sassanian 
Persia. But at other times a collapse occurs 
after a very brief space. The Babylonian 
empire lasted, at the utmost, eighty-seven, 
the Median seventy-five years. 1 This latter 

1 Ancient Monarchies, vol iii. pp. 175, 222; Manual of 
Ancient History, p. 34. 



106 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

instance furnishes almost an exact parallel to 
the empire of the Jews ; for the whole period 
of the empire is made up of two reigns, those 
of a father and a son, the former a warlike 
prince who constructs it, the latter a peaceful 
one who adorns it, and makes it the admira- 
tion of its neighbors ; and the collapse is 
brought about by a division between the two 
great sections of the ruling (Medo-Persic) 
race, and a war between them, which, how- 
ever, has a somewhat different result from 
the war between the Ten Tribes and the Two. 
Short periods of great prosperity are, in fact, 
of ordinary occurrence among the States of 
the East, where so much more depends than 
in the West on the personal character of 
individuals, and where the vigor and energy 
which enable a chief to found an empire are 
rarely inherited by descendants born and bred 
up in a seraglio. 

And if the analogy of Oriental history 
generally is thus favorable to the main Scrip- 
characterof tural fact — the sudden rise, vast 
borne out by splendor, and rapid collapse of the 

contemporary . „ _ . 

history. empire 01 the Jews, — so is the 

analogy of the Oriental history of the time 
favorable to the character of the empire, as 
set before us in the Sacred Volume. " Solo- 
mon." we are told, " reigned over all the king- 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 107 

doms from the river (Euphrates) unto the 
land of the Philistines and unto the borders 
of Egypt" (1 Kings iv. 21) ; and again, 
" Solomon had dominion over all the region 
on this side the river, from Tiphsach (Thap- 
sacus on the Euphrates) to Azzah (or Gaza), 
over all the kings on this side the river " (lb. 
24) ; " they brought presents " (lb. 21) ; a 
" rate year by year " (lb. x. 25) ; and " served 
Solomon all the days of his life" (lb. iv. 21). 
Here we have a picture of a kind of empire 
exactly similar to those which profane records 
— and more especially the recently-discovered 
cuneiform inscriptions — show to have pre- 
vailed in the East at the period to which the 
empire of Solomon is assigned, and for some 
(though not very many) centuries afterwards. 
The modern system of centralized organiza- 
tion, by which the various provinces of a vast 
empire are cemented into a compact mass, 
was unknown to the ancient world, and has 
never been practiced by Asiatics. The satrap- 
ial system of government, or that in which the 
provinces maintain their individuality, but 
are administered on a common plan by offi- 
cers appointed by the crown — which has 
prevailed generally throughout the East since 
the time of its first introduction, — was the 
invention of Darius Hysfcaspis 1 (ab. B. C. 

1 Herod, iii. 8.). 



108 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

520). Before his time the great monarchies 
of the East had a slighter and weaker organi- 
zation. They were in all cases composed of a 
number of separate kingdoms, each under its 
own native king ; and the sole link uniting 
them together and constituting them an em- 
pire was the subjection of these petty mon- 
archs to a single suzerain. The Babylonian, 
Assyrian, Median, and Lydian were all em- 
pires of this type, — monarchies where a sover- 
eign prince at the head of a powerful king- 
dom was acknowledged as suzerain, by a 
number of inferior princes, each in his own 
right sole ruler of his own county. And the 
subjection of the inferior princes consisted 
chiefly, if not solely, in two points : they were 
bound to render homage to their suzerain, and 
to pay him annually a certain stated trib- 
ute. Thus in Solomon's empire, as depicted 
in the book of Kings, we recognize at once a 
condition of things with which we are familiar 
from profane sources ; and we see that at any 
rate the account given of it is in entire har- 
mony with the political notions and practices 
of the day. 

The fact of Solomon's rule over the Jews at 
the time which Scripture assigns to him, and 
Solomon's the friendly relations in which he 
tions with Hi- stood toward the Tyrian monarch, 

ram attested *: 

by Dius. Hiram, were attested by the J ynan 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 109 

historians, on whose works Dins and Menan- 
der based their histories, as stated in a former 
chapter. 1 Dins, as reported by Josephus, 2 
said, k ' On the death of Abibaal, his son Hi- 
ram mounted the Tyrian throne. He made 
a mound on the eastern side of the city, and 
enlarged the citadel, and attached to the city 
by means of a mole the temple of Jupiter 
(Baal?), which stood by itself on an island, 
and adorned the temple with golden offerings. 
Moreover, he cut timber in Mount Lebanon, 
to be used in the construction of his temples. 
And it is said that Solomon, who then reigned 
at Jerusalem, sent riddles to Hiram, and re- 
quested that riddles should be sent him in 
return, with the condition that the receiver 
should pay a sum of money to the sender if he 
could not find them out. The challenge was 
accepted by Hiram ; and, as he could not dis- 
cover the answers to Solomon's riddles, he had 
to pay him a large sum as a forfeit. After 
this, a Tyrian, called Abdemon, found out 
Solomon's riddles, and sent him others which 
Solomon could not solve. So Solomon, in his 
turn, forfeited a considerable sum to Hiram." 
Menander's testimony 3 is . very nearly to the 
same effect; but his account is less full, and 

1 See above, ch. iv. p. 96. 2 Contr. Apion. i. 17. 

3 Ibid. § 18. 



110 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

therefore does not need to be quoted. The 
date of Hiram was fixed by the Tyrian his- 
torians to the close of the eleventh century 
before our era, since his accession was placed 
in the 156th year before the foundation of 
Carthage, and the foundation of Carthage was 
assigned to the seventh year of Pygmalion, or 
B. c. 864. The exchange of riddles between 
Hiram and Solomon, which is not related in 
Scripture, illustrates both the proceedings of 
Samson (Judg. xiv. 12-19) and those of the 
Queen of Sheba, when she sought to " prove 
Solomon by hard questions " (1 Kings x. 1). 
The Tyrian histories witnessed, moreover, 
to the construction of the Temple by Solo- 
other points mon, 1 an event which they placed 
SriauUC 6 in the 144th year before the foun- 
rie8 ' dation of Carthage, or B. c. 1007. 

They stated that several letters which had 
passed between Hiram and Solomon were 
preserved in the Tyrian archives ; 2 and they 
further related, as we learn from Menander, 
that Solomon took to wife one of Hiram's 
daughters. 3 This last fact, though not dis- 
tinctly mentioned in Scripture, is probably 
glanced at in the statement (1 Kings xi. 1), 

1 Contr. Apion. § 17. 

2 Joseph, c. Ap. i. § 17. 

3 Menand. ap. Clem. Alex. Strom, i. p. 386. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. Ill 

that " King Solomon loved many strange 
women, together with the daughter of Pha- 
raoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, 
Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites." 

It might have been expected that the 
Egyptian records would have afforded illus- 
trations of the reign of Solomon, scanty uius- 

, . ~. .„ . tration of his 

oolomon s principal wire was the reign from the 
daughter of a Pharaoh, and a tory of Egypt. 
portion of his dominions accrued to him 
through this marriage (1 Kings ix. 16). One 
of his adversaries was married to another 
Egyptian princess, the sister of Tahpenes, 
wife of an Egyptian monarch (lb. xi. 19). 
Late in his reign, a subject whom he suspected 
took refuge in Egypt, and was favorably re- 
ceived by Shishak, who was then king' (lb. 
40). But the Egyptian records of the period 
are peculiarly scanty. The monarchs of the 
twenty-first dynasty have left scarcely any 
memorials. All that appears from them is 
that Egypt was at this time exceedingly weak, 
that she had no foreign wars, and that Eg}^p- 
tian princesses were occasionally married to 
subjects and foreigners. 1 The names of Sol- 
omon, Hadad, Jeroboam, Tahpenes, do not 
occur. The name of Shishak is, however, 
found under the form of Sheshonk ; his date 

1 Lenormant, Manuel d' Histoire Ancienne, torn. i. p. 452. 



112 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

accords with that of Solomon ; and he ap- 
pears as the founder of a new dynasty, and 
therefore as a prince who might naturally 
change the relations previously subsisting be- 
tween Judaea and Egypt. But, on the whole, 
the illustration under this head is scanty and 
disappointing. 

In one respect, however, the history of 
Egypt and the parallel history of Assyria har- 
Date assigned monize very remarkably with the 

to Solomon's J ' J , 

Empire in har- Hebrew accounts, rendering that 

mony with . 

both Egyptian which seems most extraordinary 

and Assyrian . * 

history. and abnormal in them readily 

comprehensible, natural, and even probable. 
When we glance over the general relations 
and consider the natural resources of the three 
countries — Egypt, Palestine, Assyria, — it 
seems at first sight most unlikely that the 
weak intermediate country should at any time 
have been able to assert herself, and to main- 
tain undisturbed for above half a century an 
empire over regions generally claimed by one 
or other, or by both, of the great powers 
between which she lay. Under ordinary 
circumstances, when Egypt and Assyria, or 
either of them, were in their vigor, the as- 
sumption of such a position by Judsea may be 
pronounced simply impossible. But the mon- 
uments of both countries show that, exactly 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 113 

at the time when the Jewish empire is placed 
by the sacred writers, there was, both in 
Egypt and in Assyria, a temporary decay and 
depression. Assyria, which in the twelfth 
century bore rule over most of Northern Syria, 
passes under a cloud towards the commence- 
ment of the eleventh, and continues weak and 
inglorious till nearly the close of the tenth. 1 
Egypt declines somewhat earlier, but recovers 
sooner, her depression commencing about B. 
C. 1200, and terminating with the accession of 
Sheshonk, about B. C. 990. 2 It is only in the 
interval between the decline of Assyria, B. C. 
1100, and the recovery of Egypt, B. c. 990, 
that such an empire as that ascribed to Solo- 
mon would have been allowed to exist ; and 
exactly into this interval the Solomonian em- 
pire falls according to the sacred writers. 

Among the accessories of the history of 
Solomon there are numerous points on which 
profane history sheds a light ; but Picture of the 

, . , . . °, Phoenicians 

the space within which these II- confirmed by 

i • i n profane au- 

lustrations must be confined will thors. 
only allow of special attention being called to 
two. These are the pictures drawn of Phoeni- 
cian civilization at the time, and the charac- 
ter of the art which forms so remarkable a 

1 Ancient Monarchies, vol. ii. pp. 332-336. 

2 Lenormant, Manuel, torn. i. pp. 419-452. 

8 



114 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

feature of Solomon's reign. Phoenician civil- 
ization is represented as consisting especially 
in the possession of nautical skill, of exten- 
sive commerce, and of excellence in the me- 
chanical and ornamental arts and employ- 
ments. None " can skill to hew timber like 
unto the Sidonians " (1 Kings v. 6). They 
are " cunning to work in gold, and in silver, 
in brass, and in iron, and in purple, and in 
blue, and in crimson " (2 Chr. ii. 7) ; they 
" can skill to grave gravings " (lb.). Hi- 
ram of Tyre casts for Solomon all his vessels 
for the Temple service, and, especially the two 
huge pillars, Jachin and Boaz, which stood in 
front of the porch, and the great laver called 
"the molten sea" (1 Kings vii. 21-23). 
Skill in the mechanical processes of art and 
in ornamentation is what we find ascribed to 
them ; not artistic excellence in the highest 
and best sense of the words. Closely in ac- 
cordance with this is the character of Phoenician 
civilization, which we derive from the Greeks. 
Their early nautical skill and extensive trade 
are mentioned by Homer and Herodotus, the 
former of whom speaks especially of their 
beautifully embroidered robes and their bowls 
of silver. 1 Their " skill to hew timber," 

1 Herod, i. 1; iv. 148. Horn. II. vi. 289; xxiii. 743; Od. iv. 
614; xv. 417, etc. 



OF THK OLD TESTAMENT. 115 

even at this remote time, was attested by their 
own historians, as also was their practice of 
making large metal pillars. 1 Such remains of 
their art as have come down to us are of the 
character indicated. They consist of engraved 
gems and cylinders, and of metal bowls, plain, 
or embossed with figures. 2 In no instance do 
the figures show any real artistic excellence. 

[* A few years ago certain letters or mark- 
ings were found at Jerusalem on the bottom 
rows of the wall at the southeast angle of 
the Haram, at the depth of ninety feet, near 
where Solomon's Temple must have stood. 
Mr. E. Deutsch, of the British Museum, who 
saw them on the ground, decides that they 
must have been put there when the stones 
were laid in situ, and that they are Phoeni- 
cian. 3 Similar marks are found on primitive 
substructures in the harbor of Sidon at the 
present day. It has been suggested, as the 
most probable explanation of these marks 
here, that they were put there by Tyrian 
architects whom Hiram or Huram 4 sent to 
assist Solomon in the erection of the Temple, 

1 See the fragment of Dius quoted above, p. 100, and com- 
pare Menand. ap. Joseph, c. Ap. i. 18. 

2 Layard, Nineveh and Babylon, pp. 186, 603. 

3 * See Quarterly Statement of the Pal. Expl. Fund, No. ii. 
(1869). — H. 

4 * Different forms of the same name. Huram occurs espe- 
cially in Chronicles, and is a Masoretic variation of Hiram. — H. 



116 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

as we learn from 1 K. v. 10, 18, and 2 Chr. ii. 
11 ft". Yet we may not insist on this coinci- 
dence, because the Hebrews and the Tyrians 
at that period may have used the same written 
form of letters or figures, and hence the He- 
brew architects may have placed them there.] 
The art of Solomon's reign presents nu- 
merous points of agreement with the style of 
Art of Soio- ar t recently discovered to have pre- 
record X e Yailed in Mesopotamia and the ad- 
byttfe' Assyr- jacent countries at a time not much 
mn remains, subsequent. The modern historian 
of architecture finds in the ruins of Nineveh 
and Palestine the best means of illustrating 
and explaining the edifices with which Solo- 
mon adorned Jerusalem. 1 The " House of 
the Forest of Lebanon " 2 resembles clearly 
the " Throne-room " of an Assyrian or Per- 
sian palace. Its proportions, its cedar roofing, 
its numerous columns, its windows and doors 
squared at top, are all in keeping with Assyr- 
ian or Persian examples ; with which accord 
also the separation of the entire palace into 
several distinct groups of buildings, the in- 
clusion within the palace of large courts, the 

1 Fergusson, History of Architecture, vol. i. Compare Bib- 
lical Dictionary, vol. ii. p. 659 ; and vol. iii. p. 228-'>, Amer. ed. 

2 * See 1 K. vii. 2, x. 17, 21; 2 Chr. iv. 16, 20. It was so 
called from being largely built of cedar or adorned with cedar 
pillars from Lebanon. — H. 






OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 117 

pacing of the courts with stone, and the em- 
ployment of slabs of stone as a facing to the 
walls of the palace (1 Kings vii. 9). The 
overlaying of the Temple with pure gold (lb. 
vi. 21, 22), so marvelous to moderns, accords 
with the Babylonian, the Assyrian, and the 
Median practice ; the ornamentation of the 
same building, and its furniture, with cheru- 
bims (probably winged bulls), palm-trees, 
and open flowers (lb. vi. 32), and again with 
pomegranates and lions (lb. viii. 18, 29), is 
thoroughly Assyrian ; the height of the pil- 
lars Jachin and Boaz, and the size and com- 
plicated character of their capitals, have par- 
allels at Persepolis ; the lions that guard the 
steps of Solomon's throne (lb. x. 20), recall 
the lion figures at the Assyrian palace gates ; 
the " throne of ivory" (lb. 18), accords with 
the fragments of ivory furniture f ound at Nin- 
eveh. 1 In these and numerous other respects, 
the art ascribed to Solomon by the sacred 
writers receives illustration from remains, most 
of which were buried at the period when they 
compiled their histories, and have been for the 
first time uncovered in our day. 

Of the divided kingdom which followed 
upon the death of Solomon, the Assyrian 
records furnish numerous, and the Egyptian a 

1 Layard, Nineveh and Babylon,, pp. 194-196. 



118 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

few illustrations. The most important Egyp- 
Shishak's ex- tian notice is contained in an inscrip- 
againTjudah tion erected by Shishak (Sheshonk) 
SfrfSK- at Karnak, which has been most 
.scriptions. carefully studied by modern schol- 
ars, and may be regarded as having completely 
yielded up its contents. This document is a list 
of the countries, cities, and tribes, conquered 
in his great expedition by Shishak, and re- 
garded by him as his tributaries. It contains, 
not only a distinct mention of " Judah," as a 
"kingdom" which Shishak had subjugated, 1 
but also a long list of Palestinian towns, from 
which an important light is thrown on the 
character of the expedition commemorated, 
and the relations subsisting between Judah 
and Israel in the early part of Solomon's 
reign. Among the cities mentioned are not 
only, as might have been expected, a certain 
number of the cities of Judah, but several in 
the territory of the Ten Tribes, which one 
would have supposed subject to Jeroboam, 
Shishak's protege and ally, and therefore un- 
likely to have been treated hostilely by the 
Egyptians. Examination, however, of these 
cities shows that they fall into the two classes 
of Levitical towns, and towns originally Ca- 

1 Wilkinson in Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. ii. p. 316, 2d 
ed. ; Stuart Poole in Biblical Dictionary, ad voc. Shishak. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 119 

naanite ; and the explanation of their appear- 
ance in the list seems to be, that Jeroboam 
was not at first firmly established in the whole 
of his kingdom, but that the Levites held to 
Rehoboam (see 2 Chr. xi. 13), while the 
remnant of the Canaanites probably re- 
asserted their independence. Shishak there- 
fore directed his arms against these two 
classes of cities, handing them over, probably, 
when he had taken them, to Jeroboam, who 
thereby became master of the whole territory 
of the Ten Tribes, which he held, probably, 
as a fief under the Egyptian crown. 

Shishak's invasion of Palestine was followed 
within about thirty years (^according to the 
book of Chronicles) by another zerah'sexpe- 

_ dition against 

great attack irom the same quar- Asa. 
ter. Zerah, the Ethiopian, at the head of a 
vast army, composed of Ethiopians and Lib- 
yans, invaded Judaea in the reign of Asa, the 
grandson of Rehoboam, but was completely 
defeated by him, and forced to an ignomin- 
ious flight. It was not likely that we should 
obtain any direct confirmation of this expedi- 
tion from the other side, since Oriental mon- 
archs do not generally record their disasters ; 1 

1 * It is said that no record of the death of a king has yet 
been found on-the Assyrian monuments. Certainly this sing- 
ular reserve exceeds very much that of the French mortuary 
valediction and salutation : Le rot est mort : vive fa roi ! — H. 



120 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

but hieroglyphical scholars are able to point 
out two monarchs, reigning about this time 
in the valley of the Nile, having names that 
accords sufficiently with the Hebrew Zerah, 
one or other of whom would seem to have been 
the leader of the invasion. The Egyptian 
throne was occupied from about B. c. 956 to 
933 by an Osorchon, who may have been by 
birth an Ethiopian ; 1 and the throne of Ethio- 
pia was filled about the same time by a king 
named Azerch-Amzx, whose monuments are 
found at Napata. 2 The Hebrew practice of 
abbreviating foreign names (seen in So, Shal- 
man, etc.) may have caused either of these 
names to be expressed by Zerah. 

During the reign of Asa over Judah, the 
sister kingdom was the scene of great dis- 
Greatness of orders. Revolution followed rev- 

Omri con- . .. . 

firmed by the olution. r our dynasties rapidly 

Assyrian in- . ^ 1 • 

scriptions. succeeded each other. Iwo kings 
were assassinated ; one burnt himself in his 
palace. At length a certain Omri attained to 
power, and succeeded in introducing greater 
stability into the Israelite state. Removing 
the capital to a new site, Samaria, and estab- 
lishing a new system of laws, which were 

1 The second Osorchon married the sister of the preceding 
king, and ruled in right of his wife. 

2 Lenormant, Manuel, torn. i. pp. 253, 453. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 121 

thenceforth observed (Mic. vi. 16), he so 
firmly fixed his dynasty upon the throne, 
that it continued during three generations and 
four reigns before it was succeeded by an- 
other. A monarch of this capacity might be 
expected to get himself a name among his 
neighbors ; and accordingly we find in the As- 
syrian inscriptions of the time that his name 
is the Israelite name with which they are most 
familiar. 3 Samaria is known to the Assyrians 
for some centuries merely asBeth-Omri, "the 
house " or " city of Omri ; " and even when 
they come into contact with Israelite mon- 
archs of the house which succeeded Omri's 
upon the throne, they still regard them as 
descendants of the great chief whom they 
view perhaps as the founder of the kingdom. 2 
Thus the Assyrian records agree generally 
with the Hebrew in the importance which 

1 * The most skeptical writers recognize the significance of 
this agreement of Assyrian and Jewish history. See De Wette- 
Schrader's Einkit. is das A. und N. Test. p. 320 (1869). In some 
minor details the Assyrian readings may be still uncertain; but 
of the great bulk of them, there is no more doubt than of the 
renderings of one spoken language into another. On this sub- 
ject, see " Xinive," by F. Spiegel in Herzog's Real-Encyk. vol. 
x. pp. 361-381 (1858), and especially, under the same title, vol. 
xx. pp. 219-235 (1866). See also Testimony of Assyrian In- 
scriptions to the Truth of Scripture, by Rev. T.Laurie, formerly 
missionary at Mosul (Bibl. Sacra, xiv. pp. 147-165). — H. 

2 See the Black Obelisk Inscription, where Jehu is called 
"the son of Omri." 



122 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

they assign to this monarch ; and specially 
confirm the fact (related in 1 Kings xvi. 24), 
that he was the founder of the later Israelite 
metropolis, Samaria. 1 

Omri's name appears also on another very 
recently discovered monument. The stele of 
omri men- Mesha, king of Moab, erected at 

tioned ou the T ^ ... . • -_ r 

MoaWte stone. Dibon in the Moabite country 
about B. c. 900, twenty or thirty years after 
Omri's death, records that he reduced the 
Moabites to subjection, and began an oppres- 
sion under which they groaned, till Mesha 
reestablished their independence. 2 This no- 
tice agrees well with the Hebrew date for 
Omri, and with the mention that is made of 
his u might " in 1 Kings xvi. 27. 

Omri's son and successor, Ahab, is men- 
tioned by name in an Assyrian contemporary 
Ahab men- inscription, which, agreeably to the 

tioned on the r . ' . & X, 

Black obelisk, account given in the r irst Book of 
Kings with respect to the place of his ordi- 
nary residence (1 Kings xviii. 46 ; xxi. 1, 2), 
calls him " Ahab of Jezreel." 3 The inscrip- 

1 * In accordance with this concurrent biblical and monu- 
mental testimony, Dean Stanley treats of the reign of "the 
house of Omri " as one of the great epochs of Jewish history 
{Lectures on the Jewish Church, vol. ii. pp. 313-376). — H. 

2 See Dr. Ginsburg's Moabite Stone, pp. 31-33; [and Appen- 
dix No. 2, in this edition of the work.] 

8 M. Oppert reads "Ahab of Israel" {Histoire des Empires 
de Chaldee et d'Assyrie, p. 140); but Sir H. Rawlinson regard? 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 123 

tion tells us that Ahab on a certain occasion 
joined in a league of kings against the Assyr- 
ians, and furnished to the confederate army, 
that was brought into the field, a force of 
10,000 footmen and 2,000 chariots. The al- 
lies suffered defeat, and Ahab appears thence- 
forth to have abstained from offering any op- 
position to Assyria. Among the confederate 
monarchs with whom he leagued himself was 
the Damascene king, Benhadad, whom Scrip- 
ture also makes Ahab's contemporary. 

The relations here exhibited as subsisting 
between Ahab and Benhadad may appear at 
first sight difficult to reconcile with those de- 
scribed in Kings, where Benhadad is Ahab's 
chief foreign enemy (1 Kings xx. and xxii.). 
But if we carefully examine the sacred text, 
we shall see that there is express mention of 
an interval of peace as having occurred be- 
tween the two great Syrian wars of Ahab — 
an interval estimated at three years (1 Kings 
xxii. 1), — during which period the two mon- 
archs were friends. The alliance with Ben- 
hadad against the Assyrians may well have 
fallen into this space. 1 Indeed, it throws 
light both on the readiness of Ahab to grant 

the Assyrian word as corresponding more closely to the Hebrew 
" Jezreel." 

1 The Assyrian chronology requires as the date of the alli- 
ance a late year in the reign of Ahab. 



124 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

the Syrian monarch favorable terms when he 
had him in his power (1 Kings xx. 34), and 
on his exasperation at the terms granted not 
being observed (lb. xxii. 3), if we suppose 
that Ahab made his covenant with Benhadad 
in contemplation of an impending Assyrian 
invasion ; that when the invasion came, he 
helped Benhadad to resist it ; and that then 
Benhadad, setting at nought the obligations 
both of honor and gratitude, refused to fulfil 
the engagement by means of which he had 
obtained his liberty. 

The Moabite stone also speaks of Ahab, 
though not by name. " Omri," it tells us, 
His oppression "King of Israel, oppressed Moab 
cor<Sron r L many days, for Chemosh was angry 

Moabite stone. ^^ ^ l an d. ffi S §071 SUCCeeded 

him, and he also said, I will oppress Moab." 1 
This passage agrees well with the statements 
of the Second Book of Kings (i. 1, and iii. 4, 
5), that the Moabites were subject to Ahab 
throughout his reign, and paid him annually 
the enormous tribute of "an hundred thou- 
sand lambs, and an hundred thousand rams 
with the wool." Such a tribute (even if 
the wool alone, and not the animals, is in- 
tended) would undoubtedly have been felt 

1 See Dr. Ginsburg's Essay on the Moabitt Stone, p. 13. 
[See also Appendix No. 2, at the end of this volume.] 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 125 

by the people who paid it as extremely op- 
pressive. 1 

The ancient Tyrian histories may also be 
quoted as illustrative of the reign of Ahab, 
some facts of though they do not expressly men- 

his reign illus- . & J r c Ti- 

trated by the tion him. I he author ot Kings 

ries. (1 Kings xvi. 31) relates that 

Ahab " took to wife Jezebel, the daughter 
of Eth-baal, king of the Zidonians." This 
" Eth-baal " appeared as " Eithobalus " in 
Dius and Menander, who made him the sixth 
king of Tyre after Hiram, reckoning the in- 
terval between the two at fifty years, and giv- 
ing Eithobalus a reign of thirty-two years, 2 
whereby he would be exactly contemporary 
with Ahab. Moreover, the Tyrian histories 
related that Eithobalus was high-priest of 
Astarte (or Ashtoreth), which accounts in a 

1 * Some think the tribute was not an annual one, but ex- 
acted only once. It is not necessary to adopt that view. " The 
extraordinary number of ruins scattered over the country," says 
Mr. Grove, "are a sure token of its wealth in former ages." 
(Bibl. Diet. vol. iii. p. 1987, Amer. ed.) Recent travellers con 
firm this testimony. " Everything in Moab speaks of its forme- 
wealth and cultivation. Even yet, though the soil is badly 
tended by the feAV Arab tribes that inhabit it, large tracts of 
pasture land and extensive corn-fields meet the eye at every 
turn. Ruined cottages and towers, broken walls that inclosed 
gardens and vineyards, remains of ancient roads, meet the 
traveller at every step." See Our Work in Palestine, p. 322. 
Our American explorers now in that region may be expected to 
settle many similar questions relating to the Bible. — H. 

2 See Joseph, contr. Ap. i. 18. 



126 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

measure for the religious fanaticism of his 
daughter. They further stated that during 
the reign of this monarch, there was a severe 
drought in Phoenicia, 1 which may not unrea- 
sonably be connected with the three years' 
want of rain, mentioned in Kings (1 Kings 
xvii. 1 ; xviii. 1). 

The rebellion of Moab, which is the first 
fact assigned by the writer of Kings to the 
The revolt of reign of Ahaziah, Ahab's elder son 
S^he and successor (2 Kings i. 1), has 
SSeMolbite recently had much light thrown 
stooe. upon it by the discovery of the 

monument (already referred to) erected to 
commemorate the occurrence. 2 The " Mesha, 
king of Moab," who threw off the Israelite 
yoke (2 Kings iii. 4, 5), inscribed upon a pil- 
lar, which he set up in his own land, the series 
of events whereby he had restored his country 
to independence ; and the inscription upon 
this pillar has recently, by the combined 
labor of various Semitic scholars, been recov- 
ered, deciphered, and translated into the lan- 
guages of modern Europe. 3 It appears from 
this document, as already noticed, that a griev- 

1 Menand. ap. Joseph. Ant. Jud. viii. 13. 

2 See Appendix No. 2. 

3 See the various translations collected hy Dr. Ginsburg at 
the close of his Essay (pp. 42, 43) ; [and see also Appendix No. 2, 
in this volume.] 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 127 

ous oppression of the Moabites was begun by 
Omri and continued by his son Ahab ; who 
together oppressed the nation for a space 
which Mesha reckons roughly at forty years. 
After this, probably in the first year of Aha- 
ziah, the Moabites rebelled. Mesha attacked 
and took the various towns which were occu- 
pied by Israelite garrisons throughout the 
country, and after a sharp struggle made him- 
self master of the whole territory. He then 
rebuilt such of the Moabite cities as had fallen 
into decay during the period of the oppres- 
sion, strengthening their fortifications, and 
otherwise restoring and beautifying them. 

Of the reign of Jehoram, Ahaziah's suc- 
cessor, we have no profane illustration ; but 
the Assyrian monument known as Mentionof 
"the Black Obelisk," contains a Hazaeiand 

Jehu on the 

notice of the next Israelite mon- Black Obelisk, 
arch, Jehu, and another of the Syrian king 
who succeeded Benhadad, Hazael. Hazael 
appears as the chief antagonist of the Assyr- 
ian invaders of Syria, in immediate succes- 
sion to Benhadad ; 1 and Jehu, who is called 
" the son of Omri," is declared to have sent 
ambassadors to the Assyrian capital with 
presents or tribute. 2 The facts here recorded 

1 Ancient Monarchies, vol. ii. p. 364-. 

2 Ibid. p. 365. Jehu's ambassadors are represented, bringing 
the tribute, on the Black Obelisk. 

* Instead of "Jehu's ambassadors" in this note we should 



128 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

are not mentioned in Scripture ; and the " il- 
lustration " consists simply in the mention at 
an appropriate time, under appropriate circum- 
stances, and in proper sequence, of persons 
who play an important part in the Sacred 
History. 

A more interesting point of agreement than 
the bare mention in the same chronological 
Agreement of order of the same historic names, is 

the Assyrian 

monuments t be found in the accord between 

with Scripture 

as to the con- the general picture of Syria at this 

dition of Syria, ° ± J > 

b.c. 900-800. time, as presented to us in our Sa- 
cred Books, and the representation of it given 
by the Assyrian records. In both we find the 
country between the middle Euphrates and 
Egypt parceled out among a large number 
of tribes or nations, of whom the most pow- 
erful are, in the north, the Hittites, the Ha- 
mathites, the Phoenicians, and the Syrians of 
Damascus ; in the south, the Philistines and 
the Idumasans. In both there is a similar por- 
trait of Syria of Damascus as a considerable 
state, the strongest in these parts, ruled from 
a single centre by a single monarch. The 
same general character, and the same second- 
ary position, is in both assigned to Hamath, 

substitute "Ahab's ambassadors" according to Prof. Rawlin- 
son's corrections in his Ancient Monarchies, vol. iv. p. 576. 
This makes a change of a few years only in the time of the 
first contact between the Assyrians and the Israelites, but does 
not affect at all the value of the Biblical corroboration. — H. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 129 

which, like Damascus, has its single king (2 
Kings xix. 13 ; 1 Chr. xviii. 9), but is evi- 
dently a kingdom of less strength. In con- 
trast with these two centralized monarchies 
stand the nations of the Hittites and the 
Phoenicians, each of which has several inde- 
pendent kings or chiefs, the number in the 
case of the Hittites being, apparently, very 
great (1 Kings x. 29 ; comp. xx. 1). The 
military strength of the northern nations con- 
sists especially, according to both authorities, 
in their chariots, besides which they have a 
numerous infantry, but few or no horsemen. 
Both authorities show that, in this divided 
state of Syria, the kings of the various coun- 
tries were in the habit of forming leagues, 
uniting their forces, and making conjoint ex- 
peditions against foreign countries. Lastly, 
in both pictures we see in the background 
the two great powers of Egypt and Assyria, 
not yet in conflict with one another, not yet 
able, either of them, to grasp the dominion 
of Syria, or crush the spirit of its brave and 
freedom-loving peoples, but both feeling their 
way towards a conquest, and tending to come 
into a collision which will establish the com- 
plete preponderance of the one or the other 
in the region lying between the Nile and the 
Euphrates. 



L30 historical illustrations 

From early in the reign of Jehu over Israel, 
till late in that of Azariah (or Uzziah) 1 over 
Judah, — a period of about a hundred years, 
Depression of — the Assyrian annals are silent 

Assyria b. c. # ^ 

bou-750 ac- with respect to the events and per- 

cords with m- x , ■*• 

crease of jew- sons mentioned in Scripture. The 

ish power at \ 

that time. monarchs who warred in Southern 
Syria and Palestine have left no detailed 
account of their campaigns, or at any rate 
none has been discovered hitherto ; and we 
consequently know nothing beyond the broad 
facts, that in the earlier part of the period As- 
syria still claimed dominion over Syria of Da- 
mascus, Phoenicia, and Samaria, 2 while in the 
later she fell into a depressed condition, suffered 
from revolts within her own proper terri- 
tory, 3 and left the Syrians to follow their own 
devices. This temporary weakness of the 
great Asiatic kingdom in the earlier half of 
the eighth century B. C, is in harmony with 
the statements of Scripture, that about this 
time both Israel and Judah were able to as- 
sume an aggressive attitude, and to enlarge 
their borders at the expense of their neigh- 
bors. Uzziah in Judah, Jeroboam the second, 

1 * Probably forms of the same name, though regarded by 
some as different. See Winer's Bibl. Wbrterbuch, vol. ii. p. 648. 
— H. 

2 Ancient Monarchies, vol. ii. pp. 378, 379. 

3 Seven years of revolt are mentioned in the Assyrian canon 
between b. c. 763 and 746. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 131 

and Menahem in Israel, extended their author- 
ity over the border nations, Uzziah reducing 
Philistia and Amnion (2 Chr. xxiv. 6-8), 
Jeroboam conquering Haraath and Damascus 
(2 Kings xiv. 28), and Menahem making 
himself master of the entire tract between 
Samaria and the Euphrates at Thapsacus (lb. 
xv. 16). It was only when the power that 
claimed to be mistress of Western Asia was 
exceptionally weak that such third-rate states 
as Judaea and Samaria could presume to at- 
tempt extensive conquests. 

It is into the period which we are here con- 
sidering that an event falls which constitutes 
almost the only important historical The Assyrian 
difficulty that now meets the in- Shrespecf 
quirer into the harmony between the t0 i>uU 
sacred and the profane, the only dark place in 
the narrative which recent discoveries might 
have been expected to illumine, yet which they 
have not illumined, but have left in all its 
previous obscurity. This event is the inva- 
sion of Samaria, about B. C. 760-750, by a 
monarch who is called " Pul, king of Assyria " 
(1 Kings xv. 19 ; 1 Chr. v. 26) ; who came up 
against Israel in the reign of Menahem, and 
forced that prince to acknowledge his suzer- 
ainty, and to pay him a tribute of a thousand 
talents. Of this Pul the Assyrian records tell 



132 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

us nothing. On the contrary, they in a cer- 
tain sense exclude him, since in the lists of 
Assyrian monarchs who reigned about this 
period, — lists which profess to be, and ap- 
parently are, complete, — there is no mention 
of Pul, and no indication of any place at which 
his reign can be inserted. It seems certain 
that the later monarchs of Assyria, Sargon, 
Sennacherib, Esar-haddon, Asshnr-bani-pal, 
did not acknowledge any monarch of the name 
of Pul among their predecessors on the As- 
syrian throne. 1 They filled that throne, at the 
date assigned to Pul in Scripture, with a prince 
whose name is completely different, 2 and they 
moreover made this prince a faineant, who 
scarcely ever led out his army beyond the fron- 
tier, and eschewed all distant expeditions. 

In this silence of the Assyrian annals Avith 
respect to Pul, we turn to the ancient historian 
Pui mentioned °f Mesopotamia, Berosus, and we 
hIs probable) & n & that we have not turned to him 
real position. ^ Vain Berosus mentioned Pul, 
and placed him exactly at this period ; but he 
called him a " Chaldasan, ' and not an " Assyr- 
ian" monarch. 3 If this were the case, if Pul 

1 The numerous copies of the Assyrian Canon all agree in the 
order of the kings. None of them show any signs of a gap. 

2 The name is commonly read as " Asshur-lush," or "Asshur- 
likkis." 

3 Ap. Euseb. Chron. Can. i. 4. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 133 

reigned at Babylon and not at Nineveh, the 
Assyrian records might naturally enough be 
silent about him. But why, it may be asked, 
did the sacred writers not term him " King 
of Babylon," if this was his real position. It 
would perhaps be enough to answer that the 
Great Power of Western Asia, at any time 
after the rise of the Assyrian Empire, was 
reckoned by the Jews to have inherited that 
empire, and was therefore called " King of 
Assyria," as Nabopolassar is in 2 Kings xxiii. 
29, and Darius Hystaspis in Ezra vi. 22. 
But there was perhaps a further reason for the 
title being used of Pul at this time. The 
Assyrian annals show, from about B. c. 763, a 
disintegration of the Assyrian dominion — a 
breaking off of the provinces from the rule of 
Nineveh, and a weakness on the part of the 
Ninevite monarchs, which may well have al- 
lowed of the western provinces passing under 
the authority of an ambitious Babylonian 
prince, who, being master of the portion of 
Assyria nearest to them, would necessarily 
appear to the Jews to be " King of Assyria." 
This probably was the position of Pul. He 
was a " Chaldasan," who, in the troublous 
times that fell upon Assyria, about B. c. 763- 
760, obtained the dominion over Western 
Mesopotamia, and who, invading Syria from 



134 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

the quarter whence the Assyrian armies were 
wont to come, and being at the head of As- 
syrian troops, 'appeared to the Jews as much 
an Assyrian monarch as the princes that held 
their court at Nineveh. 

With the reign of Tiglath-pileser in Assyria, 
and those of Azariah and Ahaz in Judah, and 
The Assyrian of Menahem and Pekah in Israel, 
S/ip' points of contact between the As- 
pi2W? slath " Syrian and the Hebrew records be- 
Sewudlh, come abundant. Tiglath-pileser 

and Syria. relates ffc at> about his fifth year 

(b. C. 741), being engaged in wars in Southern 
Syria, he met and defeated a vast army under 
the command of Azariah, king of Judah, 
the great monarch whose host is reckoned in 
Chronicles at 307,500 men, and whose mil- 
itary measures are described at considerable 
length (2 Chr. xxvi. 6-15). Again, he re- 
lates that from his twelfth to his fourteenth 
year (b. c. 734-732) he carried on a war in 
the same regions with the two kings, Pekah 
of Samaria, and Rezin of Damascus, who were 
confederate together, and that he besieged 
Rezin in his capital for two years, at the end 
of which time he captured him and put him 
to death, while he punished Pekah, by mulct- 
ing him of a large portion of his dominions, 
and carrying off vast numbers of his subjects 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 135 

into captivity. 1 It is scarcely necessary to 
point out how completely this account har- 
monizes with the Scriptural narrative, accord- 
ing to which Pekah and Rezin, having formed 
an alliance against Ahaz, and having attacked 
him, Ahaz called in the aid of Tiglath-pileser, 
king of Assyria, who " hearkened to him, and 
.... went up against Damascus, and took it, 
and carried the people captive to Kir, and sleio 
Rezin " (2 Kings xvi. 9) ; and who likewise 
punished Pekah by invading his territory and 
carrying away the Reubenites, the Gadites, 
and half the tribe of Manasseh (2 Kings xv. 
29; 1 Chr. v. 6, 26), and settling them in 
Gozan in the Khabour. Further, Tiglath- 
pileser relates that before quitting Syria he 
held his court at Damascus, and there received 
submission and tribute from the neighboring 
sovereigns, among whom he expressly men- 
tions, not only Pekah of Samaria, but " Yaliu- 
Khazi (i. e. Ahaz), king of Judah." 2 This 
passage of the Assyrian annals very remarka- 
bly illustrates the account given in 2 Kings 
xvi. 10-16, of the visit of Ahaz to Damascus 
" to meet King Tiglath-pileser." 

The annals of Tiglath-pileser contain also 
some mention of the two Israelite monarchs, 

1 Ancient Monarchies, vol. ii. pp. 131, 132. Compare "Lenor. 
mant Manuel, torn. ii. p. 86. 

2 Ancient Monarchies, vol. ii. p. 133, 2d ed. 



136 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

Menaliem and Hoshea. Menahem appears as 
slight chrono- tributary to Assyria in the early part 

logical diffi- . . 

cuity. of Tiglath-pileser's reign (about 

B. c. 743) ; and Hoshea makes submission to 
the Assyrian monarch, probably in his last 
year, B. c. 728. 1 These Assyrian dates in- 
volve a certain amount of chronological diffi- 
culty when compared with the Hebrew ; but 
the Hebrew dates of the time are evidently in 
confusion, the original numbers, as given by 
the sacred writers, having certainly been cor- 
rupted in many instances. To produce a com- 
plete accord between the two chronologies at 
this point, we should have to give Pekah a 
reign of ten, instead of twenty years. 

Of Hoshea, the last Israelite king, there is 
no further mention in the Assyrian annals. 
shaimaneser's Shalmaneser, the Assyrian monarch, 
noTicedbyMe- wno was en g a g e( i m hostilities with 

nander. ]^ m f or se y era l years, has left 110 

records ; which may be accounted for by the 
shortness of his reign, or by the fact that he 
was succeeded by a usurper. The Assyrian 
canon, however, agrees with Scripture in mak- 
ing Shalmaneser king directly after Tiglath- 
pileser ; and Menander of Ephesus spoke of 
his warring in Southern Syria, where he said 
that Tyre was besieged by him for five years. 2 

1 Ancient Monarchies, vol. ii. pp. 130, 133. 

2 Menand. ap. Joseph. Ant. .hid. ix. 14. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 137 

Hoshea's league with " So, king of Egypt " 
(2 Kings xvii. 4), admits of some illustration 
from the Egyptian records, since it » S0) king of 
is almost exactly at the time of SSJon the 
Hoshea's reign that a change oc- aS^S in- 
curs in the dynastic lists of Egypt, uments - 
which is accompanied by a recovery of vigor 
on the part of that power and a resumption 
of the old policy of aggression. Manetho's 
twenty-fifth, or Ethiopian, dynasty appears to 
have extended its influence into Lower Egypt 
about B. C. 725, 1 or a little later ; and the 
" So " (Seveh, or Sava) of Kings may reason- 
ably be identified with the first monarch of 
this dynasty, the Sabaco of Manetho and He- 
rodotus, and the Shebek I. of the hieroglyphi- 
cal inscriptions. This prince, who contended 
with Sargon in Southern Palestine a little 
later, 2 may well have attracted the regard of 
Hoshea, when, about B. c. 724 or 723, he was 
looking out for some powerful ally who might 
help him to throw off the yoke of Assyria. 
The league formed between the two neighbors 
is natural, and has many analogies ; so too has 
the Egyptian monarch's desertion of his pro- 
tege in the hour of peril, a course of conduct 
only too familiar to Egyptian princes. 

1 Lenormant, Manuel, torn. i. p. 457. 

2 Ancient Monarchies, vol. ii. pp. 143-145. 



138 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

The capture of Samaria, and the deportation 
of its people by the Assyrians, which termi- 
The fan of Sa- nated the reign of Hoshea, and at 
STthe Syr? the same time brought the kingdom 
ian records. o ^ I sra el to an end, is noticed in the 
annals of Sargon, 1 who was Shalmaneser's suc- 
cessor, and assigned by him to his first year, 
which was B. c. 722-721. Here, it will be 
observed, there is an exact accord between the 
Assyrian and the Hebrew dates, the Hebrew 
chronology placing the fall of Samaria in the 
135th year before the capture of Jerusalem by 
Nebuchadnezzar, which was in the 18th year 
of that king, or B. c. 586 (and B. c. 586 -f 
135 producing B. c. 721). Again, Sargon re- 
lates that he carried away captive from Sa- 
maria 27,280 persons ; and he subsequently 
states that he transported numerous prisoners 
from Babylonia to a place " in the land of the 
Hittites," which is probably Samaria, though 
the inscription is not at this point quite legible 
(compare 2 Kings xvii. 24). It may be ob- 
jected that, according to the narrative of 
Kings, Shalmaneser, and not Sargon, appears 
as the conqueror of Hoshea and captor of 

1 Ancient Monarchies, vol. ii. p. 141. 

* The "annals" meant above are the Assyrian inscriptions 
which furnish this information. The principal monuments 
which relate to Sargon are now in the Louvre at Paris. See 
Prof. Rawlinson's article on Sakgon, in Smith's Bibl. Diet. 
vol. iv. p. 2844, Amer. ed. — H. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 139 

Samaria (lb. 3-6) ; and undoubtedly this 
is the impression produced on the ordinary 
reader ; but a careful examination of the text 
of Kings removes this impression, and rather 
produces a contrary one. For while in the 
first passage where the capture is mentioned 
(2 Kings xvii. 3-6), the name of Shalman- 
eser occurs only in verse 3, and subsequently, 
in verses 4, 5, and 6, the phrase used four times 
is " the King of Assyria," who may at any 
point in the narrative be a new monarch, in 
the second passage (2 Kings xviii. 9-11) 
there seems to be a distinct intimation that 
Shalmaneser was not the actual captor, since 
the phrase is changed, and while we are told 
that " he (Shalmaneser) came up against Sa- 
maria and besieged it " (xviii. 9), in the fol- 
lowing verse the expression used is, " they 
took it." Had the same monarch who began 
the siege effected the capture, the writer 
would naturally have said, u and at the end of 
three years he took it." x 

1 * Without separating the subject of the first verb so dis- 
tinctly from that of the second verb, we may suppose that 
Shalmaneser, though he did not himself capture Samaria, pre- 
pared the way for it by his invasion of the land of Israel and 
his seige of Samaria. The Hebrew writer (2 K. xviii. 10) may 
have had in mind that cooperation, and may have meant to 
recognize it by passing thus abruptly from the singular to the 
plural. Hence "they" in the A. V. (not expressed in the 
Hebrew) would stand for Assyrians, and include Shalmaneser 
among them. — H. 



140 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

The discovery itself of S argon as a real 
Assyrian king, the successor of Shalmaneser, 
and the predecessor and father of Sennach- 
sargon's rec- erib, is an important illustration of 
isa lS x C x. D a 1 nd 1 2 Scripture, since, until the name was 
Kmgs xvn. 6. recovere( j f r0 m the Assyrian monu- 
ments, there was no confirmation at all of 
Isaiah's mention of S argon, King of Assyria 
(xx. 1), nor any means of determining the 
place of this monarch in the Assyrian lists. 
The passage of Isaiah stood by itself, the sole 
evidence during five-and-twenty centuries of 
there ever having been an Assyrian king of 
the name ; and many critics and historians 
were led in consequence to doubt his distinct 
personality, and to identify him with Shalma- 
neser, Sennacherib, or Esarhaddon. 1 The 
Assyrian discoveries have put an end to all 
surmises of this character, and have given to 
Sargon a definite position, a marked individu- 
ality, and an important place in the sacred 
narrative. It appears to be Sargon who is 
intended in 2 Kings xvii. 6, 24, and xviii. 11, 
as well as in Isa. xx. 1, 4, and 6. Isaiah's 
mention of his capturing Ashdod, and being 
engaged in hostilities with the Egyptians and 
the Ethiopians, is confirmed by the Assyrian 
records, 2 which also illustrate very remarkably 

1 See Smith's Biblical Dictionary, ad voc. Sargon. 

2 Ancient Monarchies, vol. ii. pp. 142-147, 2d edit. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 141 

the statement, that, when he carried the Sa- 
maritans into captivity, he placed some of 
them "in the cities of the Medes." For Sar- 
gon relates that, having overrun a large por- 
tion of Media, he seized a number of the 
towns, and "annexed them to Assyria," 
which, according to the system regularly fol- 
lowed by him in his conquests, 1 would involve 
his occupying them with colonists from a dis- 
tance. 

The Hebrew records relate that Hezekiah, 
the son of Ahaz, after having borne the As- 
syrian yoke which his father had Sennacherib's 

J >> m first expedi- 

accepted, for a certain time, re- tion against 

r ' ' Hezekiah de- 

volted, and trusting: in the aid of scribed miiy in 

° t the annals of 

Egypt, like the Israelite monarch, Sennacherib. 
Hoshea, resumed his independence. Thus 
provoked, " Sennacherib," we are told, " King 
of Assyria, came up against all the fenced 
cities of Judah, and took them ; and Heze- 
kiah, King of Judah, sent to the king of As- 
syria to Lachish, saying, I have offended : 
return from me : that which thou puttest 
upon me I will bear : and the King of As- 
syria appointed unto Hezekiah, King of Judah, 
three hundred talents of silver and thirty 
talents of gold " (2 Kings xviii. 13, 14) . 3 

1 Ancient Monarchies, vol. ii. p. 152. 

2 * For a pictorial delineation of this siege of Lachish, drawn 
from Assyrian monuments, see Smith's Bibl. Dictionary, vol. ii. 
p. 1579 f., Amer. ed. — H. 



142 HISTOEICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

The annals of Sennacherib, son and successor 
of S argon, contain a full account of this cam- 
paign. " Because Hezekiah, King of Judah," 
says Sennacherib, " would not submit to my 
yoke, I came up against him, and by force of 
arms and by the might of my power I took 
forty -six of his strong fenced cities, and of 
the smaller towns which were scattered about 
I took and plundered a countless number. 
And from these places I captured and carried 
off as spoil 200,150 people, old and young, 
male and female, together with horses and 
mares, asses and camels, oxen and sheep, a 
countless multitude. And Hezekiah himself 
I shut up in Jerusalem, like a bird in a cage, 
building towers round the city to hem him 
in, and raising banks of earth against the 

gates to prevent escape Then upon this 

Hezekiah there fell the fear of the power of 
my arms, and he sent out to me the chiefs and 
the elders of Jerusalem with thirty talents of 
gold and eight hundred talents of silver, and 
divers treasures, a rich and immense booty. 
.... All these things were brought to me 
at Nineveh, the seat of my government, Hez- 
ekiah having sent them hy way of tribute, 
and as a token of submission to my power." 1 
The close agreement of these two accounts is 

1 Ancient Monarchies, vol. iii. pp. 160, 161. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 143 

admitted on all hands, and is indeed so pal- 
pable that it is needless to enlarge upon it 
here. The Assyrian monarch, with pardonable 
pride, brings out fully all the details at which 
the Hebrew annalist, in his patriotic reticence, 
only hints, — as the ravage far and wide of the 
whole territory, the vast numbers of the cap- 
tives and the spoil, the actual siege and 
blockade of the capital, the alarm of the 
Jewish monarch, and his eagerness to pro- 
pitiate his offended lord, — but his main facts 
are exactly those which the Jewish historian 
puts on record, the only apparent discrepancy 
being in the number of the talents of silver, 
where he probably counts the whole of the 
treasure carried off, while the Hebrew writer 
intends to give the amount of the permanent 
tribute which was agreed upon. It may be 
added, that the details, which the author of 
Kings suppresses, are abundantly noticed in 
the writings of the contemporary prophet, 
Isaiah, who describes the ravage of the terri- 
tory (Isa. xxiv.), the siege of Jerusalem 
(xxix. 1-8), and the distress and terror of the 
inhabitants (xxii. 1-14), even more graphi- 
cally and more fully than the historiographer 
of Sennacherib. 1 

1 Compare also 2 Chr. xxxii. 1-8, which gives very fully the 
preparations for the defense of Jerusalem made by Hezekiah. 



144 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

On the second expedition of Sennacherib 
into Syria, which terminated with the terrible 
silence of As- disaster related in 2 Kings xix. 35, 1 

Syrian records . , i r» a • m j 

with respect to the annals 01 Assyria are silent. 

his second ex- , .-, . 

pedition. buch silence is m no way surpris- 

ing. It has always been the practice in the 
East to commemorate only the glories of the 
monarch, and to ignore his defeats and re- 
verses. 2 The Jewish records furnish a soli- 
tary exception to this practice. In the entire 
range of the Assyrian annals there is no case 
where a monarch admits a disaster, or even 
a check, to have happened to himself or his 
generals ; and the only way in which we be- 
come distinctly aware from the annals them- 
selves that Assyrian history was not an un- 
broken series of victories and conquests, is 
from an occasional reference to a defeat or loss 
as sustained by a former monarch. ■ Other- 
wise we have to gather the ill-success of the 
Assyrian arms from silence, from apparent de- 

1 * " The angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp 
of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and 
when they [the few left, among whom was the king], arose early 
in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses." 

It may have been a pestilential blast under the image of a 
destroying angel, that occasioned this mortality, or it may have 
been the result of an angel's more direct unseen agency (Ps. 
xxxvii. 49; 2 Sam. xxiv. 16). See Dean Stanley's note, Hist. 
of the Jewish Church, vol. ii. p. 530, and Prof. Rawlinson's 
Herod, ii. 141.— H. 

2 * See Note on p. 11£ of the "Illustration?." — H. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 145 

pression, from the discontinuance of expedi- 
tions toward this or that quarter. In the 
present case there is such a discontinuance. 
Sennacherib during his later years made no 
expedition further westward than Cilicia ; nor 
were the Assyrian designs against Southern 
Syria and Egypt resumed till toward the 
close of the reign of Esarh addon. 

But besides this tacit confirmation of the 
Scriptural narrative, profane history furnishes 
us with an important explicit tes- Great destruc- 
timony. The Egyptian priests de- nacherib's ar - 
clared to Herodotus, out of their by Herodotus. 
records, that, about a century and a half before 
the conquest of their country by Cambyses, 
an invasion of it had been attempted by Sen- 
nacherib, King of the Assyrians and Arabians, 
who marched a vast host to the border of the 
Egyptian territory, where he was met by the 
Egyptians under their king, S ethos. The 
two hosts faced each other near Pelusium, on 
the most eastern branch of the Nile. Here, 
as they lay encamped, army over against 
army, there came, they said, in the night a 
multitude of field-mice, which devoured all the 
quivers and bowstrings of the Assyrians, and 
ate the thongs by which they managed their 
shields. Next morning, as soon as they dis- 
covered what had happened, they commenced 
10 



146 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

their flight, and great multitudes of them fell, 
as they had no arms wherewith to defend 
themselves. In commemoration of the event, 
Sethos, they added, the Egyptian king, erected 
a monument of himself, which they showed to 
the Greek traveller. It was a stone statue 
of a man with a mouse in his hand, and bore 
an inscription, " Look on me, and learn to 
reverence the gods." x We have here evi- 
dently an allegorized version of* that terrible 
calamity which overtook the host of Sennach- 
erib in the night, and which was followed in the 
morning by the hasty flight of the survivors. 
The particular form of the allegory was de- 
termined by the character of the work of art, 
which had been erected to celebrate the occa- 
sion, where the mouse in the hand was prob- 
ably a mere symbol of ruin and destruction. 2 

The murder of Sennacherib by two of his 
sons, though not distinctly related in the As- 
■ Munier of sen- Syrian records, is illustrated bv the 

nacherib illus- . . 1 . * 

trated. condition wherein Assyria is found 

at the commencement of the reign of Esarhad- 
don. This monarch's inscriptions show that 
soon after his accession he was engaged for 
some months in a war with his half-brothers, 3 

i Herod, ii. 141. 

2 Compare 1 Sam. vi. 4, 5. 

3 See Ancient Monarchies, vol. ii. p. 186. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 147 

who would naturally, after murdering their 
father, endeavor to seat themselves upon his 
throne. The Greek historian, Abydenus, al- 
ludes to the same struggle ; 1 and the Arme- 
nian records declared that the two assassins, 
having made their escape from the scene of 
conflict, obtained a refuge in Armenia, where 
the reigning monarch gave them lands, which 
long continued in the possession of their pos- 
terity. 2 

The history of Hezekiah, as related in the 
Second Book of Kings, introduces to our no- 
tice, besides Sennacherib and Esar- Hezekiah's 
haddon, two other monarchs, of ries. Tirhakah 

, , . . „ andMerodach- 

wnom we nave mention m proiane Baiadan 
records. These are a Tirhakah, from 
King of Ethiopia " (2 Kings xix. period. 
9), and " Merodach-Baladan, King of Baby- 
lon " (lb. xx. 12, 13 ; comp. 2 Chr. xxxii. 
31). Tirhakah, King of Ethiopia, is undoubt- 
edly the Tehrak of the Egyptian monuments, 3 
who reigned over Egypt from B. c. 690 to 
B. c. 667, and who may have been monarch 
of Ethiopia for about ten years before he took 
the title of King of Egypt. He is the third 
king of Manetho's twenty-fifth or Ethiopian 

1 Ap. Euseb. Chron. Can. i. 9. 

2 Mos. Choren. Hist. Arm., i. 22. 

3 See Biblical Dictionary, ad voc. Tirhakah. 



mouu- 
ments of the 



148 



HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 



dynasty ; and his relations toward Egypt 
would make it natural for him to bestir him- 
self, when that country was threatened by the 
advance of Sennacherib's army, and to assume" 
the character of its protector. Merodach- 
Baladan appears in the Assyrian inscriptions, 1 
and also in the famous document known as 
" the Canon of Ptolemy." He had two reigns 
at Babylon, separated from each other by an 
interval. Being an enemy of Assyria, and at 
war successively with both Sargon and Sen- 
nacherib, he would be attracted toward Heze- 
kiah, who had thrown off the Assyrian yoke, 
and would be glad to conclude with him an 
alliance. Hence, probably, his embassy, 
which, if it was in B. c. 713, as the Hebrew 
numbers make it, belonged to his first reign, 
when he was contemporary with Sargon, and 
occupied the Babylonian throne from B. c. 
721 to 709. His second reign fell in B. c. 703. 
Of Manasseh's capture and imprisonment 
at Babylon by a king of Assyria, who, as con- 
ManasseVs temporary with Hezekiah's son and 
y£n wcoris successor, should be Esarhaddon, 
SliV!!!?"*" "the son and successor of Hezekiah's 

don s resi- 
dence there, antagonist, Sennacherib, it cannot 

be said that we have any direct profane notice. 

We find, however, by the Assyrian records, 

1 Ancient Monarchies, vol. iii. pp. 40, 41. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 149 

that Manasseh was reckoned by Esarhaddon 
among his tributaries ; x and we have a curious 
illustration of what is at first sight most sur- 
prising in the sacred narrative, namely, the 
statement that " the captains of the host of the 
King of Assyria," when they took Manasseh 
prisoner, carried him with them, not to Nine- 
veh, but to Babylon (2 Chr. xxxiii. 11). 
It appears by the inscriptions, that Esarhad- 
don not only, like his grandfather, S argon, 
took the title of King of Babylon, but that he 
actually built himself a palace there, 2 in which 
he must undoubtedly have occasionally resided. 
Thus there is nothing strange in an important 
prisoner being brought to him at the southern 
capital, though such a thing could scarcely have 
happened to any other Assyrian sovereign. 3 

The cessation oi" all mention of Assyria in 
the Jewish records after the reign of Manas- 
seh, and the new attitude taken by Josiah > s great _ 
Josiah (about B.C. 634-625), who ™^ he 
claimed and exercised a sovereignty aMfln of Cline 
not only over Judsea, but over As ^" ria - 
Samaria and Galilee (2 Chr. xxxiv. 6), ac- 
cords well with what we learn from profane 

1 Ancient Monarchies, vol. ii. p. 200, note 8. 

2 Ibid. p. 196. 

3 * This is the only narrow margin in the history where the 
incident could be inserted with any appearance of truth. On 
this coincidence, see more fully Bibl. Dictionary, vol. ii. p. 
1774, Amer. ed. — H. 



150 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

history as to Assyria's decline and final ruin. 
From about the year B. c. 633 we begin to 
find Assyria showing symptoms of weakness. 
In that year, according to Herodotus, Nineveh 
was 'attacked by the Medes. 1 Soon afterwards 
an immense horde of savage invaders from the 
North seems to have swept across the whole 
of Western Asia, carrying ruin and desolation 
over vast regions, and probably afflicting As- 
syria as much as any other power. 2 About 
the same time Egypt shook off the Assyrian 
yoke, and Psamatik I. began aggressions upon 
Southern Syria. A king who in his old age 
had become feeble, held the Assyrian sceptre, 
and the Medes were allowed to increase in 
strength without an effort being made to keep 
them in check. At last, about B. c. 626, 
Nineveh was again besieged by this enemy, 
who being joined by the Babylonians and Su- 
sianians, in a short time gained a complete 
success. Assyria fell B. c. 625 or 624 ; Nin- 
eveh was razed to the ground ; and the Medes 
and Babylonians divided the empire between 
them. It was easy for Josiah during this 
troublous time to free his country from sub- 
jection to a hated yoke, and to effect an en- 

1 Herod, i. 102. According to this writer, the last year of 
Phraortes preceded by seventj'-five years the first of Cyrus, 
B. c. 558. 

2 Ancient Monarchies, vol. ii. pp. 221-228. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 151 

largement of his dominions at the expense of 
his less powerful neighbors, who could obtain 
no help from their nominal suzerain. 

The war of Josiah with Necho, King of 
Egypt, and the precedings of that monarch 
in Syria and Palestine, between w . , Q 

J ' Necho s Syr- 

the years B. c. 610 and B. c. 604, iaD 'conquests 

y ana their loss 

receive important illustration from confirmed by 

x Herodotus and 

the histories of Herodotus and Be- Berosus. 
rosus. Herodotus relates that Necho " made 
war by land upon the Syrians, and defeated 
them in a pitched battle at Magdolus ; " 1 while 
Berosus declares that toward the close of the 
reign of Nabopolassar, or shortly before B. c. 
605, troubles broke out in the West ; Egypt, 
Syria, and Phoenicia rose in revolt \ and Nabo- 
polassar was forced to send his son Nebuchad- 
nezzar into those parts to put down the insur- 
rection and recover the countries. 2 The Jewish 
narrative connects and harmonizes these two 
accounts. It shows us Necho as the first dis- 
turber of the tranquillity that prevailed, and 
indicates to us a design on his part to add to 
his dominions all Syria as far as Carchemish 
on the Euphrates (2 Chr. xxxv. 20) ; it tells 
us of the opposition offered to this design 
by Josiah, and his defeat in a pitched battle 
at Megiddo (lb. 22-24), the Magdolus of 

1 Herod, ii. 159. 2 Ap. Joseph, c. Ap. i. 19. 



152 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

the Greek writer — it intimates that after 
this Necho carried out his plans successfully, 
and for a time ruled over all Syria (2 Kings 
xxiv. 7) ; it then records the advance of 
Nebuchadnezzar, his defeat of Necho (Jer. 
xlvi. 2), and his recovery of the entire region 
lying between the Euphrates and the " river 
of Egypt." Necho after this, it tells us, 
" came not again any more out of his land ; " 
the yoke of Babylon being henceforth, as 
Berosus also stated, firmly fixed on the west- 
ern countries. 

Of the closing scenes in the history of the 
kingdom of Judah, the repeated revolts of 
Nebuchadnez- the Jewish monarchs, their re- 

zar's conquest .. . . , -„ 

of Jerusalem newed negotiations with Jirgypt, 
Berosus. their deposition by their offended 

lord, their captivities, and the final punishment 
of the rebellious race by the destruction of its 
city and temple, and the deportation of the 
great mass of the people to Babylon, we 
could only expect to have detailed confirma- 
tion if we possessed the annals of Nebuchad- 
nezzar. Unfortunately, no such document 
has hitherto been recovered. We know, how- 
ever, that the history of Berosus, which was 
based upon native records, stated that " Neb- 
uchadnezzar, having conquered the Jews, 
burnt the Temple at Jerusalem, and remov- 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 153 

ing the entire people from their homes, trans- 
ported them to Babylon ; " 1 and we have no 
reason to doubt that, as the main facts are 
thus confirmed, so would be the details, if the 
full history of the time had come down to us. 
Where history affords the means' of testing 
the details, they are correct. The name of 
the Egyptian monarch on whom Zedekiah 
relied is given, in Jer. xliv. 30, as " Hophra," 2 
correctly ; for in B. C. 588-586 Apries, or 
Haifra-het, ruled over Egypt. 3 And the 
length of Nebuchadnezzar's reign and the 
name of his successor are delivered with the 
same accuracy by the writer of Kings (2 
Kings xxv. 27), whose " Evil-merodach " is 
clearly the Eveilmaraduchus of the native his- 
torian, 4 and whose calculation of the length of 
Jehoiachin's captivity (lb.) compared with 
his statement that that monarch was made 
prisoner in Nebuchadnezzar's eighth year (lb. 
xxiv. 12), produces for the length of Nebuch- 
adnezzar's reign the exact period of forty- 
three years, which is assigned him both by 
Berosus 5 and by the Canon of Ptolemy. 

1 Ap. Joseph, c. Ap. i. 19. 

' 2 * In the English version it is "Pharaoh-Hophra," i. e. King 
Hophra ; for Pharaoh was not a personal name among the Egyp- 
tians, bat one of the royal dynastic titles, like Ptolemy, Seleucid, 
Caesar. See also 2. K. xxiii. 29, 33, etc. Compare note on p. 35. 
— H. 

3 Wilkinson in Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. ii. pp. 210, 323. 

4 Ap. Joseph, c. Ap. i. 21. 5 Ibid. 1. s. c. 



154 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

Such are the most remarkable of the direct 
historical illustrations which profane sources 
wide extent furnish for the period of Jewish 
tfon h s! and St in- history between Rehoboam and 
Et C pa n r C e e nt of Zedekiah. They include notices of 
discrepancies. , a i nios t every foreign monarch men- 
tioned in the course of the narrative — of 
Shishak, Zerah, Benhadad, Hazael, Mesha, 
Rezin, Pul, Tiglath-pileser, Shalmaneser, So, 
S argon, Sennacherib, Tirhakah, Merodach- 
Baladan, Esarhaddon, Necho, Nebuchadnez- 
zar, Evil-merodach, and Apries, — and of the 
Jewish or Israelite kings, Omri, Ahab, Jehu, 
Ahaziah, Menahem, Pekah, Ahaz, Hoshea, 
Hezekiah, and Manasseh. All these monarchs 
occur in profane history in the order, and at 
or near the time which the sacred narrative 
assigns to them. The synchronisms, which 
that narrative supplies, are borne out wherever 
there is any further evidence on the subject. 
The general condition of the powers which 
come into contact with the Jews is rightly de- 
scribed ; and the fluctuations which they ex- 
perience, their alternations of glory and depres- 
sion, are correctly given. No discrepancy 
occurs between the sacred and the profane 
throughout the entire period, excepting here 
and there a chronological one. And these 
chronological discrepancies are in no case seri- 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 155 

ous. Sennacherib's first expedition against 
Hezekiah should, according to the Assyrian 
records, have fallen about thirteen years later 
than the Hebrew numbers place it ; and Men- 
ahem's reign in Samaria should have come 
down about ten years further. The time of 
Hazael, Jehu, and Ahab, appears by the Assyr- 
ian records to have been about forty years later 
than it is placed by the books of Kings, accord- 
ing to the numbers assigned to the reigns of the 
Jewish monarchs, or twenty years later than 
the same authority places it, according to the 
numbers assigned to the reigns of the kings of 
Israel. But the Assyrian chronology of this 
earlier period, it is to be remembered, has 
come down to as, not on contemporary monu- 
ments, but on documents drawn up at a compar- 
atively late date, by the princes of the dynasty 
of Sargon. Some slight difficulties also occur in 
adjusting the Egyptian chronology to that of 
the Hebrews. Tirhakah comes upon the scene 
seven or eight years earlier, and So (or Shebek) 
about ten years earlier than we should have 
expected from our Egyptian authorities. But 
these authorities do not appear to deserve im- 
plicit credence, and may well be in error to 
the extent required by the sacred narrative. 
So much corruption has taken place in the 
numbers of all ancient works, that exact chro- 



156 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

nology with respect to events in the remote 
past is unattainable. The judicious student 
of Ancient History must be content for the 
most part with approximate dates, and will 
rely far more upon well-attested synchronisms 
than upon schemes which have a mere nu- 
merical basis. 

The later narrative of the books of Chroni- 
cles and Kings may further receive a certain 
Further iiius- amount of illustration of an indi- 
the fc acco f rd™f re °t character, from a consideration 
prSfane r hir- ith of the incidental notices which are 
EnnerT 60 * dropped with respect to the man- 

and customs. nerg ar]d customs Q f ^ e foreign 

nations, with which the Jews are in this part 
of their history represented as coining into 
contact. Though the sacred narrative is far 
from giving us in this place such a complete 
portraiture of the Assyrians or Babylonians as 
it furnishes in the Pentateuch of the Egyp- 
tians, yet, if we add to the picture drawn in 
Chronicles and Kings the further touches fur- 
nished by the contemporary prophets, espe- 
cially Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, ive shall 
find that we possess, altogether, a description 
of these peoples, which is capable of comparison 
with the account of them that has reached us 
from profane sources. And this comparison, 
though it cannot be carried to the extent which 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 157 

was found possible in the case of Egypt, 1 will 
be found to embrace so many and such minute 
points as to constitute it an important head of 
evidence, and one perhaps to many minds 
more convincing than the direct illustrations 
adduced hitherto. 

The. Assyrians are represented as a warlike 
people, the conquerors of many kings and na- 
tions (2 KingS Xix. 11-13), pOSSeSS- Por trait drawn 

ing numerous chariots (lb. 23) and ° aus f n aJUJ. 
horsemen (2 Kings xviii. 23 ; Is. 
xxii. 7) ; terrible as archers (2 Kings xix. 32 ; 
Is. v. 28) ; accustomed to besiege cities by 
means of banks and forts (lb. and Is. xxix. 3) 
as well as to " come before them with shields " 
(2 Kings xix. 32) ; merciless when victorious ; 
.accustomed to break down and destroy the 
towns of the enemy (Is. xxxvii. 26), and to 
carry their inhabitants away captive (2 Kings 
xv. 29 ; xvii. 6, etc.), young and old, often 
" naked and barefoot " (Is. xx. 4), replacing 
them by colonists from a distance (2 Kings 
xvii. 24; Ezr. iv. 2). The Assyrian govern- 
ment is represented as an empire over numer- 
ous tributary kings (Is. x. 8 ; 2 Kings xvi. 7 ; 
xix. 13, etc.). The monarch stands out prom- 
inently at its head. He is " the great King, 
even the King of Assyria " (2 Kings xviii. 

1 See above, pp. 41-55, and 73-81. 



158 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

28), lord and master of all, even the most ex- 
alted of his subjects (lb. 27), far removed 
above any rival. Next to him in apparent 
rank is the Tartan, who commands his armies 
in his absence (Is. xx. 1 ; comp. 2 Kings xviii. 
17), after whom come the Rabsaris, and the 
Rabshakeh, who, by their names, should be 
" the chief eunuch," and " the chief cup- 
bearer," grand officers who represent their 
master in embassies (2 Kings 1. s. c). The 
King of Assyria usually makes war in person, 
marching out from Nineveh at the head of 
armies, which appear not to exceed about 
200,000 men (2 Kings xix. 35). He fights, 
not merely for the sake of empire, with its 
concomitants of homage and tribute (2 Kings 
xvii. 4 ; xviii. 14), but also in order to possess* 
himself of the valuable commodities peculiar 
to the conquered countries. For example, he 
covets Syria, especially in order that he " may 
go up to the height of the mountains, to the 
sides of Lebanon, and cut down the tall cedars 
thereof, and the choice fir-trees thereof " (2 
Kings xix. 23 ; comp. Is. xiv. 8). He impris- 
ons the monarchs who offend him (2 Kings 
xvii. 4), and makes them languish long in a 
wearisome confinement (2 Chr. xxxiii. 11, 
12 ; Is. xiv. 17), but occasionally has pity 
upon them and restores them to their long- 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 159 

lost thrones (2 Chr. xxxiii. 13). There is 
one peculiarly barbarous custom, which he 
sanctions, with respect to these unfortunates. 
When they have rebelled and been captured, 
they are brought before him with a hook or 
ring passed through their lip or their jaw, and 
a thong or cord attached to it, by which their 
captor leads them. 1 

Again, the magnificence and luxury of the 
Assyrians is noted. They are " clothed with 
blue " (Ezek. xxiii. 6), " most gorgeously " 
(lb. 12) ; they deal " in broidered work and 
in chests of rich apparel " (lb. xxvii. 24) ; 
their merchants are " multiplied above the 
stars of heaven " (Nah. hi. 16) ; Nineveh is 
full of the spoil of silver and the spoil of gold ; 
there Is none end of the store and glory out of 
all of the pleasant furniture " (lb. ii. 9). The 
people combine a degree of civilization and 
luxury scarcely reached elsewhere, with a 
sternness, a fierceness, and a military spirit 
seldom found among Orientals, after habits of 
primitive savagery have been cast aside. 

1 This is the real meaning of the passage incorrectly rendered 
in the Authorized Version (2 Chr. xxxiii. 11), "which [the 
Assyrians] took Manasseh among the thorns" [where "took 
Manasseh with the hooks" (see also Am. iv. 2), is the correct 
rendering]. The practice is also glanced at in 2 Kings xix. 
28, as one that the Jews in their day of success might employ 
against the Assyrians. A bas-relief discovered at Khorsabad 
illustrates this practice. See Bibl. Diet. vol. ii. p. 1086, 
Amer. ed. 



160 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 

The picture thus presented to us is in strik- 
ing accord with the character of the Assyrians, 
Agreement of oi their monarchy, of their mode 
wUh P ?he r As- of warfare, of their favorite habits 
tureTandhT- and practices, as they may be gath- 
scriptions. ere( j f TOm the sculptured monu- 
ments and inscriptions. These exhibit to us 
the Assyrian people as, from first to last, a 
warrior nation, delighting in battle even while 
well acquainted with all the softer arts of 
peace, and engaged in a constant series of 
aggressions upon their neighbors. They show 
us the army divided into distinct corps, of 
which the most important are the chariots, 
and the horsemen. 1 Swords and spears are 
used by the warriors ; but the weapon on 
which most dependence is placed, is the bow. 2 
The siege of cities is a favorite subject of 
representation with the artists, who exhibit 
the " mounds," or " banks," piled against the 
walls, and further portray the movable 
" forts " or " towers," which elevate the be- 
siegers to a level with the battlements of the 
fortified place, and enable them to engage its 
defenders on an equal footing. 3 At the same 

1 Ancient Monarchies, vol. i. p. 422. 

2 Ibid. pp. 421. 424, etc. 

3 Layard, Monuments of Nineveh, First Series, pi. 19. 

* See the plate, which represents such a scene, in Smith's Bibl. 
Diet. vol. ii. p. 1579, Amer. ed. It depicts the siege of 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 161 

time we see bodies of archers, with their 
shields planted firmly before them, who thus 
protected drive the enemy from the walls 
with flights of arrows. 1 Towns when taken 
are ruthlessly demolished, the ramparts and 
towers being broken down, or the entire place 
destroyed by fire. 2 The inhabitants are car- 
ried off in vast numbers, without distinction 
of age or sex ; men, women, and children 
being alike barefoot, and the children not un- 
frequently naked. 3 Transplantation of the 
conquered races appears in the inscriptions as 
a system ; and it is a feature of the system to 
remove to vast distances. 4 Captive kings are 
imprisoned, commonly at Nineveh ; 5 occasion- 
ally, after a term of imprisonment, they are 
pardoned and restored to their thrones. 6 The 
barbarous custom of passing a hook or ring 

Lachish by Sennacherib (2 Chr. xxxii. 9 ; 2 K. xviii. 17), as 
sculptured on slabs found in one of the chambers of the palace 
of Koyunjik. For a remarkable inscription relating to Hez- 
ekiah and the Jews on one of the Babylonian cylinders, see 
Bibl. Diet. vol. ii. p. 1061, Amer. ed. ; and Prof. Rawlinson, 
Bampton Lectures for 1859, p. 316 ff., Amer. ed. Dean Mil- 
man calls attention to this coincidence as very remarkable 
{History of the Jews, vol. i. p. 427, Amer. ed.). — H. 

1 Layard, Monuments of Nineveh, Second Series, pis. 18, 20, 
and 21*. 

2 Ancient Monarchies, vol. i. p. 474. 

3 See Layard, Monuments of Nineveh, Second Series, pis. 18, 
19, 22, 23, etc. 

4 Ancient Monarchies, vol. ii. p. 152. 

5 Ibid. pp. 159, 173, 202, etc. 6 ibid. p. 202. 

11 



162 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

through the lip of an important prisoner, and 
leading him about by a thong attached to it, 
is exhibited in the sculptures, where captives 
thus treated are brought into the king's pres- 
ence by their captors. 1 

Again, the Assyrian government is. proved 
to- have been such as represented in Scripture. 
The empire is a congeries of kingdoms, its 
different portions being for the most part 
ruled by the native princes of the several 
countries, who render to their suzerain tribute 
and service, but are allowed to govern their 
respective territories without any control or 
interference. 2 The monarch is supreme, irre- 
sistible, set on an unapproachable height above 
his subjects, — a sort of god upon earth. 
Next to him in rank stands the " Tartan," or 
commander-in-chief, who leads out his armies 
when he is sick or otherwise indisposed, and 
whose acts are frequently confounded with 
those of his master. 3 Not much below the 
Tartan is the " Chief Eunuch," who has a 
right of near approach to his master's person, 
introduces strangers to him, and attends to 
his comforts. 4 The " Chief Cupbearer " does 

1 Ancient Monarchies, vol. i. pp. 243, 244, and 292. 

2 Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 235, 236. 

3 The Tartan occurs next to the monarchs in the lists of 
Eponyms. For the confusion between his acts and those of 
the king, see Ancient Monarchies, vol. ii. p. 101, note 3. 

4 Ancient Monarchies, vol. i. pp. 498, 502. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 163 

not make his appearance on the sculptures, 
which nowhere represent the king at a ban- 
quet ; but the general character of the Assyr- 
ian court would lead us to expect such an 
officer. It is the ordinary practice of the 
king to engage in war year after year ; and 
the expeditions which he undertakes he usu- 
ally conducts in person. The monarchs whom 
he chastises or subdues, he requires to fall 
down before his footstool and do him service ; 
while at the same time lie lays upon them 
some permanent burden in the shape of a 
fixed tribute. He is, further, in the habit of 
cutting timber in the forests belonging to the 
conquered nations, and transporting it to As- 
syria, to be used in the construction of his 
palaces. 1 The armies which he leads out 
seem rarely much to exceed 200,000 men. 2 

The magnificence of the Assyrians is very 
apparent in the sculptures and the other 
remains. The remains comprise terra-cotta 
and alabaster vases of elegant forms, gold 
earrings, glass bottles, carved ornaments in 
ivory and mother-of-pearl, engraved gems, 
bells, beautiful bronze dishes elaborately 
ornamented with embossed work, statuettes, 



1 Ancient Monarchies, vol. i. pp. 474, 475; and vol. ii. p. 
237, note 10. 

2 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 236, note 7. 



164 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

enameled bricks, necklaces, combs, mirrors, 
etc. ; l while the sculptures represent to us 
embroidered garments of the richest kind, 2 
splendid head-dresses, armlets and bracelets, 
metal goblets in excellent taste, elegant fur- 
niture, elaborate horse-trappings, dagger han- 
dles exquisitely chased, parasols, fans, musical 
instruments of ten or twelve different sorts, 
hanging gardens, paradises, pleasure-boats, 
and numerous other indications of advanced 
civilization, refinement, and luxury. 3 It is con- 
cluded with justice from them, that, towards 
the close of their empire, the Assyrians were 
in all the arts and appliances of life very 
nearly on a par with ourselves. 

A similar comparison might be made be- 
tween what we learn from Kings and Chroni- 
cles of the kingdom and people of Babylon, 
and that picture of them which may be gath- 
ered from profane sources. But as Babylon 
was the scene of the Captivity, which will 
form the main subject of the next chapter, 

1 See Mr. Layard's Nineveh and Babylon, chaps, viii. and 
xxv. especially. 

2 * It was such a "Babylonish garment " (lit. "garment of 
Shinar " or Babylonia), that Achan took among the spoils of the 
Canaanites, and attempted to conceal (Josh. vii. 21). The 
Babylonian marble and the Hebrew scroll (so wide apart from 
each other in time, place, and mode of testimony) agree to- 
gether here in a remarkable manner. — H. 

3 Ancient Monarchies, vol. ii. pp. 365-400, and 484-590. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 165 

and as the most complete account which Scrip- 
ture gives of it is contained in the pages of 
Daniel, the consideration of whose " book " 
we are now about to enter upon, the exhibi- 
tion of such agreement as exists in this matter 
will be reserved for a later portion of this 
volume. 



166 HISTOKICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 



CHAPTER VI. 

DANIEL. 

The book of Daniel is almost as much his- 
torical as prophetical. In the Hebrew Canon 
Historical char- its place is between Esther and 

acter of the L . 

book of Daniel. Ezra, two books, both oi which 
are histories. One entire half of it (chaps, i.- 
vi.) is a narrative of events, and is as capa- 
ble of receiving historical illustration as any 
other portion of the Sacred Volume. Daniel, 
moreover, supplies a gap in the Biblical his- 
tory, which is not otherwise filled up by any 
sacred writer. He is the- historian of the 
Captivity, the writer who alone furnishes 
any series of events for that dark and dis- 
mal period, during which the harp of Israel 
hung silently on the trees that grew by the 
Euphrates. His narrative may be said, in a 
general way, to intervene between Kings and 
Chronicles, on the one hand, and Ezra on the 
other, or (more strictly) to fill out the sketch 
which the author of Chronicles gives in a 
single verse of his last chapter, " And them 
that had escaped from the sword carried he " 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 167 

(z. e. Nebuchadnezzar) " away to Babylon, 
where they were servants to him and his sons 
until the reign of the kingdom of Persia " 
(2 Chr. xxxvi. 20). We learn from Daniel 
particulars of this servitude. 

The main events related in Daniel are the 
long and glorious reign of Nebuchadnezzar, 
the great king of Babylon, who Chief evel?ts 
both commenced and completed the related in it- 
captivity of the Jews ; his elevation of Dan- 
iel to a position of high authority in his king- 
dom ; his treatment of the " Three Children," 
Ananias, Azarias, and Misael ; his dreams, his 
terrible illness, and recovery ; the impiety and 
punishment of Belshazzar ; the capture of 
Babylon ; the accession of " Darius the 
Mede," and his treatment of Daniel ; and 
the accession, a year or two later, of " Cyrus 
the Persian." These events, it will be ob- 
served, are partly of a public, partly of a 
private character. The names and reigns of 
kings, their acts and fate, the order of their 
succession and general character of their gov- 
ernment, the transfer of empire from one race 
or nation to another, and the like, are of the 
former kind ; the particular treatment of indi- 
viduals among their subjects is of the latter. 
It is, of course, only of the former class of 
facts that we can expect illustrations from pro- 



168 



HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 



fane history ; and to them, accordingly, the in- 
quiry will be confined in the following pages. 
Daniel opens with some chronological state- 
ments which, at first sight, seems self-contra- 
chrouoiogicai dictory. He relates that, in a cer- 
th?eaiiynhap- tain year of the reign of Jehoiakim, 
a e P a S c ^e e of by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, 
went up to Jerusalem, and besieged 
it (i. 1) ; that, the siege being successful, he 
carried off from the city certain captives, 
among whom was Daniel, and delivered him 
into the care of his chief eunuch, with an 
injunction that he should educate him for 
three years, and then bring him into his pres- 
ence (i. 3-6) ; that this was done, and the 
captives were admitted among the " wise 
men " (i. 18-20) ; and that after this, in the 
second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, 
they were brought into danger by a decree 
which commanded that the wise men should 
be put to death (ii. 1-13). We are enabled 
to reconcile these statements by finding in 
Berosus 1 that the first expedition of Nebuch- 
adnezzar against Syria, and the commence- 
ment of the Jewish captivity, took place 
towards the close of the reign of Nabopoiassar, 
Nebuchadnezzar's father, in B. c. 605, or pos- 
sibly in B. c. 606 ; between which time and 

1 Ap. Joseph, c. Ap. i. 19. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 169 

Nebuchadnezzar's second year, B. c. 603, 
there would be room for the three years' in- 
struction spoken of ; more especially as " three 
years," according to the Hebrew usage, means 
no more than one whole year and parts, how- 
ever small, of two other years. Thus, if 
Daniel were taken to Babylon in the autumn 
of B. c. 605, and placed at once under the 
chief eunuch, he might have been presented 
to Nebuchadnezzar as educated early in B. C. 
603, and before the close of that year have 
run the risk of destruction, and escaped from 
it. Nebuchadnezzar's second year would not 
be out till the Thoth of B. c. 602, according 
to Babylonian modes of reckoning. The only 
difficulty that remains, if it be a difficulty, is 
that Nebuchadnezzar is called " King of Bab- 
ylon " in Dan. i. 1, when he was merely crown 
prince and commander-in-chief on behalf of 
his father. But this is a prolepsis common to 
most writers of history. 1 

The fact of the Jewish Captivity commen- 
cing as early as B. c. 605, which is involved in 



■» l See Dr. Pusey's Lectures on Daniel, p. 400 (3d ed.). Dr. 
Pusey well remarks: "We should naturally say, ' Queen 
"Victoria was carefully educated by her mother,' or 'the Em- 
peror Napoleon passed some years of his life in England ; ' al- 
though the education of our Queen was concluded before her 
accession to the throne, and the Emperor's residence here was 
before his accession, and while he was in exile." 



170 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

what has here been said, and is important 
other confir- in connection with the number of 

mations of the ...-., , 

narrative from years that the Captivity is declared 

the same pas- J . n 

sage. to have lasted, receives confirma- 

tion from the same passage of Berosus, who 
distinctly states that Nebuchadnezzar not only 
at this time " reduced Syria," but also u car- 
ried Jewish captives into Babylonia, and 
planted colonies of them in various suitable 
places." x Berosus also relates that he 
" adorned magnificently the temple of Bel 
from the spoils taken in this war," — a re- 
mark which accords well with Daniel's state- 
ment, that " the Lord gave into his hand .... 
part of the vessels of the house of God, which 
he carried into the land of Shinar to the house 
of his god ; and he brought the vessels into the 
treasure-house of his god " (verse 2). 

The extent, glory, and splendor of Nebuch- 
adnezzar's kingdom are strongly stated by 
General char- Daniel in his second, third, and 
Duc e ha°duez e -~ fourth chapters. Nebuchadnezzar 
Sffifttia "a king of kings" (ii. 37); 
faneVSory™ God has given him " a kingdom, 
Blh.^onianre- power, strength, and glory" (lb.) ; 

mains. j^ nag un( J er J^ u p r i nces ^ g 0v . 

ernors, and captains, judges, treasurers, coun- 
cilors, sheriffs, and rulers of provinces " (hi. 

1 Berosus, 1. s. c. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 171 

2) ; he has " grown, and become strong " 
(iv. 22) ; his " greatness is grown, and reach- 
eth unto heaven, and his dominion to the end 
of the earth " (lb.). Walking in the palace 
of the kingdom of Babylon, he exclaims, 
" Is not this great Babylon, ivluch I have built 
for the house of the kingdom by the might of 
my power, and for the honor of my majesty ? " 
(iv. 30). In all this we may seem at first 
sight to have the language of Oriental hyper- 
bole. But profane writers, and the remains 
in the country itself, agree in testifying to the 
almost literal truth and correctness of the en- 
tire portrait. " Xebuchadnezzar," says Aby- 
denus, 1 " having ascended the throne, fortified 
Babylon with a triple enceinte, which he com- 
pleted hi fifteen days. He made likewise the 
Armacales (Nahr malcha, or ' Royal river '), 
a branch stream from the Euphrates ; and he 
excavated above the city of Sippara (Sephar- 
vaim) a great reservoir, forty farsakhs in cir- 
cumference and twenty fathoms deep, and 
arranged flood-gates so that by opening them 
it was possible to irrigate the entire plain. 
Moveover, he built quays along the shore of 
the Red Sea, to check the force of the waves, 
and founded there the city of Teredon, to 

1 Ap. Euseb. Prop. Ev. ix. 41. Compare Euseb. Chron. 
Can. i. 10. 



172 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

repress the inroads of the Arabs. And he 
adorned his palace with trees and shrubs, con- 
structing what are called ' the Hanging Gar 
dens,' which the Greeks reckon among the 

Seven Wonders of the World He was 

more valiant than Hercules ; he led expedi- 
tions into Africa and Iberia, and, having re- 
duced the inhabitants, transported some of 
them to the eastern shores of the Euxine." 
•' He adorned," says Berosus, 1 " the temple 
of Belus, and the other temples, with the 
spoils which he had taken in war ; and having 
strongly fortified the city, and beautified the 
gates exceedingly, he added to his ancestral 
palace a second palace in the immediate neigh- 
borhood, very lofty and costly — 'twere te- 
dious, perchance, to describe it at length, 
wherefore I say no more than this, that, vast 
as was its size and magnificent as was its char- 
acter, the whole was begun and finished in 
fifteen days. And he upr eared in this palace 
a stone erection of great height, to which he 
gave an appearance as nearly as possible like 
that of mountains, and planted it with trees 
of various kinds, thus forming the far-famed 
Hanging Garden." Modern research has 
shown that Nebuchadnezzar was the greatest 
monarch that Babylon, or perhaps the East 

1 Ap. Joseph, c. Ap. i. 20. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 173 

generally, ever produced. He must have pos- 
sessed an enormous command of human labor. 
Nine-tenths of Babylon itself, and nine teen- 
twentieths of all the other ruins that in al- 
most countless profusion cover the land, are 
composed of bricks stamped with his name. 
He appears to have built or restored almost 
every city and temple in the whole country. 1 
His inscriptions give an elaborate account of 
the immense works which he constructed in 
and about Babylon itself, abundantly illus- 
trating the boast, " Is not this Great Baby- 
lon, which I have built ? " His wealth and the 
magnificence of his court, seem to have been 
on a par with the number and size of his 
buildings. A lavish use of the precious met- 
als characterized his architecture. 2 His pal- 
ace, called " The Wonder of Mankind," was 
" with many chambers and lofty towers ; " 
its pillars and beams were " plated with cop- 
per ; " " silver and gold, and precious stones 
whose names were almost unknown," were 
stored up inside in a treasure-house, as well 
as many other valuable objects which cannot 
be distinctly identified. 3 

1 Ancient Monarchies, vol. iii. pp. 56, 57. 

2 Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 546-548. 

3 Standard Inscription of Nebuchadnezzar (given in Ancient 
Monarchies, vol. iii. pp. 77-79). 

* For a description of the "hanging gardens " of this mon- 



174 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

There are two or three points in the his- 
tory of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, as delivered 
supposed to us by Daniel, to which rationalis- 
accuracies" tic writers have objected as " incor- 
1. "satraps" rect statements," and which they 

ofNebuchad- , -, n , * » ., , 

nezzar. have regarded as marks 01 the work 

having been composed long after the events 
whereof it treats. 1 One of these is the men- 
tion by Daniel of " satraps " among the great 
officers of Nebuchadnezzar (iii. 2, 3, 27), 
which is regarded as erroneous, since satraps 
were a Persian institution, and the regular 
satrapial system dated from Darius Hystaspis. 
Now here it may be granted that the term 
which Daniel uses, a Hebrew word corre- 
sponding as nearly as possible to the Persian 
khshatrapa, " satrap," is not likely to have 
been employed by the Babylonians under Ne- 
buchadnezzar. But it can scarcely be sup- 
posed to be improbable that the Babylo- 
nians employed provincial governors, 2 at any 
rate to some extent ; and this is what the 

arch, see Smith's Bibl. Diet. vol. iii. p. 2087, Amer. ed. The 
object of it was to give him an arbor high enough in the air 
to protect him against the mosquitos. — H. 

1 Von Lengerke, Das Bitch Daniel, Einleitung, § 13, p. Ixiii. ; 
De Wette, Einleitun(j in das alt. Test. § 255, a [and later ed. 
(1869 j, De Wette-Schrader, § 314, p. 494]. 

2 Gedaliah is such a governor in Judaea (2 Kings xxv. 22); 
and Berosus speaks of a "governor of Sj'ria " under Nabopo- 
lassar. He even calls this governor a "satrap" (ap. Joseph. 
c. Ap. i. 19). 






OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 175 

word " satrap " means, and what it was calcu- 
lated to suggest to a Jewish reader or hearer. 
Daniel, writing under Cyrus, when the word 
had become familiar to the Jews, 1 uses it in 
lieu of some Babylonian term of correspond- 
ing signification, placing it at the head of a 
somewhat barbarous list, to indicate clearly 
and at once to his readers the general charac- 
ter of the many obscure terms by which it is 
followed. 

The representation made in Daniel of the 
four classes of " wise men " at Babylon (ii. 2 ; 
v. 11), has been taxed with error on 2 classes oi 
the wholly irrelevant ground that " Wise men " 
Porphyry, and after him Eusebius, divide the 
Magi into three classes only. As there is 
every reason to believe that the " wise men " 
of Babylon were wholly and entirely distinct 
from the Magi of the Medes and later Per- 
sians, the argument adduced is absolutely 
without value. 

But, it has been urged, 2 at any rate it is 
inconceivable, that the " wise men," being 
a hereditary caste, and having a 3. Daniel's ad- 

, , Till mission among 

priestly character, should have con- them and a P - 
sented to receive Daniel and his be their head. 

1 Cyrus is said by Xenophon to have appointed satraps over 
most parts of his empire [Cyrop. viii. 6, § 7). Herodotus makes 
him leave a satrap in Lydia (i. 153). According to Nicolas of 
Damascus, Cambyses, the father of Cyrus, was " satrap of Per- 
sia," under the Medes (Fr. 66). 2 De Wette, 1. s. c. 



176 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

companions among them. Still more incon- 
ceivable is it that they should have allowed 
him to be placed over them (Dan. ii. 48). 
And, further, it is scarcely compatible with 
Daniel's character for piety that he should 
have been willing to be enrolled among such 
a class, much less have consented to take 
them under his protection. Objections of this 
kind proceed mainly from a misconception of 
the true position and character of the Babylo- 
nian " wise men." It is clear from the pro- 
fane accounts of them which have come down 
to us, that they were more a learned than a 
priestly caste, " corresponding rather to the 
graduates of a university than the clergy of an 
establishment." 1 The enrollment of a Jewish 
prince (Dan. i. 3) among them is no more 
strange than the matriculation of an Egyp- 
tian prince at Oxford ; nor would Daniel more 
compromise his principles by a study of their 
learning than a Mohammedan or a Hindoo 
does his by attendance on the lectures of our 
professors. Daniel's elevation to the position of 
their chief may with more reason be adduced 
as a difficulty ; but it must be remembered 
that in an Oriental despotism the monarch 
disposes, absolutely at his pleasure, of all dig- 
nities, and that no " consent " on the part of 
any of his subjects is deemed necessary. 

1 Bampton Lectures by Rawlinson, for 1859 (Eng. ed.), p- 163 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 177 

The strange malady which afflicted Nebuch- 
adnezzar for the space of seven years (Dan. 
iv. 32), 1 has been thought to receive Mysterious 
illustration from an inscription, in NebuchadLz- 
which occur a number of negative b^oSS at 
clauses, apparently indicating a sus- wnters - 
pension for a certain period of the monarch's 
great works. 2 But the inscription is too much 
mutilated for the sense of it to be clearly as- 
certained ; and an explanation of its meaning 
has been given, which prevents it from having 
any bearing of the kind originally suspected. 
No stress, therefore, can be laid upon this doc- 
ment ; but still profane history is not without 
some trace of the extraordinary occurrence. 
Historians of Bab}don place at about the pe- 
riod whereto it belongs the reign of a queen to 
whom are ascribed works which others declare 
to be Nebuchadnezzar's. 3 It seems not un- 

1 * " He was driven from man, and did eat grass as oxen, and 
his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were 
grown like eagle's feathers, and his nails like bird's claws" 
(Dan. iv. .'33). The malady is one not unknown to physicians, 
and is called ' Lycanthropy.' The victim thinks himself a 
beast and not a man, walks on all fours, ceases to speak, and 
rejects all ordinary food. The queen, no doubt, exercised the 
royal power during this incapacitation of the monarch. We 
are to think of him during this time, not as roaming at large, 
but confined in the gardens of the palace. See Kawlinson's 
Monarchies of the Ancient World, p. 503 (Lond. 1865). — H. 

2 Bampton Lectures, by Rawlinson, for 1859, p. 166. 

3 Herod, i. 185. Compare Abyden. ap. Euseb. Chron. Can. 
i. 10. 

12 



178 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

likely that during the malady of her husband, 
the favorite wife of Nebuchadnezzar may 
have been practically at the head of affairs, 
and in that case, works constructed at this 
time may have gone indifferently by her name 
or by his. Again, there was a remarkable 
statement in the work of the great Babylonian 
historian, that Nebuchadnezzar " fell into a 
state of infirm health " some time before his 
decease : x and this statement was enlarged 
upon by another ancient writer, who thus re- 
lated the seizure, last words, and death of the 
monarch : 2 — 

" After this, the Chaldeans say, that Nebuchad- 
nezzar, having mounted to the roof of his palace, 
was seized with a divine afflatus, and broke into 
speech as follows : ' I, Nebuchadnezzar, foretell to 
you, O Babylonians, the calamity which is about to 
fall upon you, which Bel, my forefather, and Queen 
Beltis are alike unable to persuade the fates to 
avert. A Persian mule will come, assisted by your 
gods, and will bring slavery upon you, with his ac- 
complice, a Mede, the pride of the Assyrians. 
Would that, ere he lay this yoke upon my country- 
men, some whirlpool or flood might engulf him, and 
make him wholly disappear ! Or would that, pur- 
suing another course, he were borne through the 
wilderness, where is neither city nor track of man, 

1 Beros. ap. Joseph, c. Ap. i. 20. 

2 Abyd. ap. Euseb. Pra&p. Ev. ix. 41. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 179 

but wild beasts have their pasture in it, and birds 
haunt it, that there he might wander among the 
rocks and torrent-beds alone ! And would that I, 
ere these thoughts entered my mind, had closed my 
life more happily ! ' Thus having prophesied, he 
suddenly disappeared from sight." 

This passage is very remarkable as combin- 
ing the fact of a seizure with the locality of 
the palace roof (perhaps implied in Dan. iv. 
29), with a disappearance from the face of 
men, and with the exertion of a prophetic 
power (not claimed for any other Babylonian 
monarch), such as we find to have been actually 
accorded to Nebuchadnezzar, according to the 
narrative of Daniel (chaps, ii. and iv.). The 
terms of the prophecy are also very remarka- 
ble, as containing a covert allusion to the fate 
of Nebuchadnezzar himself, and as furnishing 
almost the only notice in the whole range of 
profane history which throws light upon the 
position assigned by Daniel to " Darius the 
Mede." 

From the narrative of events belonging to 
the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, our author makes 
a sudden transition to the fatal Difficulties 
night when the Babylonian king- with the name 
dom came to an end, being absorbed Beishazzar. 
into the Medo-Persian. As he is primarily a 
prophet, and only secondarily a historian, he 



180 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

is in no way bound to make his narrative con- 
tinuous ; and thus he does not relate the death 
of Nebuchadnezzar, nor the accession of his 
son, nor the troubles that followed thereupon, 
but, omitting a period of some five-and-twenty 
years, proceeds at once from Nebuchadnezzar's 
recovery of his senses to the closing scene of 
Babylonian history, the feast of Belshazzar, 
and the Persian capture of Babylon. Until 
a few years since, this portion of his narrative 
presented difficulties to the historical inquirer 
which seemed quite insoluble. Profane histo- 
rians of unimpeachable character 1 related that 
the capture of Bab}don by the Medo-Persians 
took place in the reign of a Babylonian king, 
called Nabonnedus (or Labynetus), not of one 
called Belshazzar ; they said that this Nabon- 
nedus was not of the royal stock of Nebuchad- 
nezzar, 2 to which, according to Daniel (v. 11), 
Belshazzar belonged ; they stated, moreover, 
that he was absent from Babylon at the time 
of its capture ; 3 and that, instead of being 
slain in the sack of the town, as Belshazzar 
was (Dan. v. 30), he was made prisoner and 
kindly treated by the conqueror. 4 Thus the 

1 Berosus, Abydenus, and Herodotus. 

2 Abyden. ap. Euseb. Prcep. Ev. ix. 41; Beros. ap. Joseph. 
C. Ap. i. 21. 

3 Beros. 1. s. c. 

4 Ibid. Compare Abyden. 1. s. c. 






OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 181 

profane and the sacred narrative seemed to be 
contradictory at all points ; and Rationalists 
were never tired of urging that here at least 
the narrative of Scripture was plainly unhis- 
toric and untrustworthy. 

A very simple discovery, made a few years 
ago in Lower Babylon, has explained in the 
most satisfactory way all these ap- Thesedifficul . 
parent contradictions. Nabonnedus, by S a re ™ c ° e v n e t d 
the last native king of Babylon, dis ™™ ry . 
according to Berosus, Herodotus, and Ptolemy, 
states that his eldest son bore the name of 
Bel-shar-ezer, and speaks of him in a way 
which shows that he had associated him in 
the government. 1 Hence we learn that there 
were two kings of Babylon at the time of the 
last siege, Nabonnedus (or Labynetus), the 
father, and Belsharezer (or Belshazzar), the 
son. The latter was intrusted with the com- 
mand within the city, while the former occu- 
pied a stronghold in the neighborhood ; the 
latter alone perished, the former escaped. It 
is the former only of whom trustworthy his- 
torians relate that he was not of the royal 
stock ; the latter may have been, if his father 
took the ordinary precaution of marrying into 
the deposed house. The fact that the Bab- 

1 On the discovery of the cylinder containing this notice, see 
Athenceum of March 1854, p. 341. 



182 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

ylonian throne was at this time occupied con- 
jointly by two monarchs is indicated in the 
sacred narrative by a curious casual touch. 
Belshazzar, anxious to obtain the interpreta- 
tion of the miraculous " handwriting upon the 
wall," proclaims that whoever reads it shall 
be made " the third ruler in the kingdom " 
(Dan. v. 7). In every other similar case, 1 the 
reward is the elevation of the individual, who 
does the service, to the second place in the 
kingdom, the place next to the king. The 
only reason that can be assigned for the vari- 
ation in this instance is, that the first and 
second places were both filled, and that there- 
fore the highest assignable reward was the 
third place. 

With Daniel's graphic description of the 
condition of things inside Babylon on the night 
Daniel's ac- °^ the capture, we have no profane 
SpSJre f of he account that we can compare. The 
fii a med°by C p?o- accounts of the capture which have 
fane history. reacne d us come from Persian 
sources, and describe mainly what went on 
outside the city. There are, however, some 
striking points of coincidence between the 
sacred and profane narratives. In both it is 
evident that the assault was wholly unexpected, 
— that the capture came on the inhabitants 

l Compare Gen. xli. 40-45; Esther x. 3; Dan. ii. 48, 49. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 183 

as a complete surprise. In both it is noted 
that at the time of the capture a grand festi- 
val was in progress. 1 In both finally, it ap- 
pears that the time chosen for the assault was 
the night. 2 Profane writers assign a sufficient 
reason for this choice, since the stratagem by 
which the town was entered required darkness 
to secure its success. 3 

In the closing words of Daniel's fifth chap- 
ter, and in the narrative which follows in the 
sixth, a real difficulty meets us. Difficulty con- 

•> nected with 

" Darius the Mede " is a personage Daniels " Da- 

* t # ° nusthe 

of whom profane history is still ig- Mede.» ' 

1 Dan. v. 1. Compare Herod, i. 191; Xen. Cyrop. vii. 5, 
§15. 

a Xen. Cyrop. vii. 5, §§ 15-33. 

3 Both Herodotus and Xenophon make Cyrus enter the town 
by the bed of the Euphrates, after drawing off the water from 
it artificially. If the sinking of the water had been seen, the 
river gates would have been shut. 

* Daniel's singular abruptness and brevity (Dan. v. 30) cer- 
tainly indicate that he consciously suppresses much more than 
he says: " In that night (of carousal) was Belshazzar slain." 
We are not told who slew him, or why it was by night, or what 
made the victory so sudden and complete. This brevity indi- 
cates a latent history for us, with which Daniel and his contem- 
poraries must have been well acquainted. The draining of the 
Euphrates and the sudden irruption of the Persians and the imbe- 
cility of the drunken revelers are assumed as well known at 
that time, but must be learnt by us from other sources. Prof. 
Rawlinson has given us a remarkably vivid picture of the cap- 
ture of Babylon by Cyrus, and the attendant circumstances in 
his Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, vol. iii. pp. 516- 
518. I have inserted the passage in Smith's Blbl. Diet. vol. i 
p. 220, Amer. ed. — H. 



184 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

norant ; and the ascription to him by Daniel 
of royal rank (vi. 6, etc.), is curious and sur- 
prising. There cannot be a doubt that the 
real king of Babylon, from the moment of 
its capture, was Cyrus the Persian, who is 
made the immediate successor of Nabonne- 
dus (Labynetus) by Herodotus, Berosus, and 
Ptolemy. 1 Darius the Mede can, therefore, 
have been no more than a viceroy or deputy- 
king, a ruler set up by Cyrus, when he had 
effected the conquest. And thus much is 
really indicated in the Hebrew text, where 
the expressions translated " Darius the Median 
took the kingdom " (v. 31), and " which was 
made king over the realm of the Chaldaeans " 
(ix. 1), signify that the person mentioned was 
set upon his throne by another. 2 It was, how- 
ever, certainly not the general habit of the 
Persians to appoint viceroys over provinces ; 
their practice was to appoint " governors " or 
4 satraps ; " and though satraps were practi- 
cally a sort of petty kings, yet they had not the 
title ; and it is not likely that a mere ordinary 
satrap would have been spoken of as Darius 
the Mede is spoken of by Daniel. 3 We have, 

i Herod, i. 188-201; Beros. ap. Joseph, c. Ap. i. 21; Ptol. 
Mag. Synt. 

2 Prof. Rawlinson's Bampton Lectures for 1859, Appendix, 
p. 445 [and p. 357, Amer. ed.] ; Pusey's Lectures on Daniel, p 
397. 

3 See particularly Dan. vi. 28. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 185 

then, to ask if profane history suggests any 
explanation of the anomaly, that the individ- 
ual appointed by Cyrus to govern Babylonia, 
though the Babylonians knew that he was a 
mere satrap, and therefore did not enter his 
name on their royal lists, seemed to the Jews 
who lived under him an actual monarch. 

Now here the passage of Abydenus, above 
quoted, 1 is of importance. Abydenus makes 
Nebuchadnezzar prophesy that Bab- Possible soiu- 
ylon should be taken by two per- ficuity. 
sons — a Persian and a Mede — in combina- 
tion (compare Dan. v. 28). And he applies 
to the Mede a remarkable epithet, " the pride 
of the Assyrians." A Mede, who was the 
pride of the Assyrians, must almost necessa- 
rily have been a prince who had ruled over 
those two nations. Such a prince had been 
made prisoner by Cyrus, some twenty years 
before his capture of Babylon ; 2 and it is in 
accordance with what is elsewhere related 
of him that he should have advanced this 
monarch, if he was still alive, to the post of 
Babylonian satrap. 3 In this case, the Oriental 
respect for regal rank would have been likely 
to show itself in the assignment of the royal 

1 Supra, pp. 168, 169. 2 Herod, i. 129. 

3 See what is related of his treatment of Nabonnedas by 
Berosus (ap. Joseph, c. Ap. i. 21). 



186 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

title to one who had formerly been a great 
monarch. Thus the hypothesis that " Darius 
the Mede " is the Astyages of Herodotus and 
Ctesias, which has been maintained by many 
critics, 1 solves the chief difficulties of Daniel's 
narrative, 2 while it harmonizes with the ex- 
pression in Abydenus. 

To this it may be added, that profane his- 
tory speaks distinctly of a King Darius, more 
Profane lesti- ancient than the son of Hystaspes, 3 

mony to an t ■ 

early Darius, a monarch who, according to some, 
was the first to introduce into Western Asia 
the silver coin known as the daric, which took 
its name from him. This Darius may have 
been " Darius Medus," since we have nowhere 
any account of any other Darius " more an- 
cient than the son of Hystaspes." 

In the short narrative which belongs in 
Daniel to the reign of this Median prince, 
Daniers nar- while there are a certain number 
events °under °f points whereon profane history 
Se^acc^rds which is scanty with respect to the 
accountllT internal organization of a Persian 
JractiS r and province, sheds no light, there occur 
ideas. several which harmonize completely 

with what we know of Medo-Persian ideas 

1 As Syncellus, Jackson, Marsham, and Winer. 

2 See Bampton Lectures, by Prof. Rawlinson, fo ; 1859, Ap- 
pendix, p. 445 [and p. 357, Amer. ed.]. 

3 Harpocration, ad voc. Aapei/co?. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 187 

and practices from profane sources. For in- 
stance, the predominant legal idea in the ac- 
count given of Daniel's exposure to the lions 
is the irrevocability of a royal edict, — the 
settled law among the Medes and Persians, 
" that no decree nor statute which the king 
establisheth may be changed " (Dan. vi. 15). 
Now, in this two principles are involved : 
one, the existence of a settled law, or rule, by 
which the king himself, theoretically at any 
rate, is bound, and which he cannot alter ; 
the other, the inclusion under this law, or 
rule, of the irrevocability of a royal decree or 
promise. Both of these principles are recog- 
nized as Medo-Persic by profane writers. We 
are told that Cambyses, one of the most des- 
potic of the Persian monarchs, when he wished 
to contract an incestuous marriage, applied to 
the crown lawyers to know if they could find 
a law to justify him in indulging his inclina- 
tion. 1 And we find Xerxes, the son of Darius 
Hystaspis, brought into almost exactly the 
same dilemma as " Darius the Mede," bound 
by having passed his word and anxious to re- 
tract it, but unable to do so on account of the 
law, and therefore compelled to allow the per- 
petration of cruelties whereof he entirely dis- 
approved. 2 Again, it accords with Medo- 

1 Herod, iii. 31. 2 Ibid. ix. 109-111. 



188 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

Persic ideas that the mode of capital punish- 
ment in Babylonia, which, under the native 
monarchs, had been burning in a furnace 
(Dan. iii. 6), should under the new regime 
have been changed to an exposure to wild 
beasts; since the religious notions of the 
Medo-Persians forbade the pollution of fire 
by contact with a corpse, 1 while they allowed 
and approved the devouring of human bodies 
by animals. 2 Thirdly, the inclusion of the 
guiltless wives and children of criminals in 
their punishment, which is seen to have been 
the established practice under Darius the 
Mede, by Dan. vi. 24, appears frequently in 
Persian history as part of the ordinary admin- 
istration of the criminal law under the Achae- 
menian kings. 3 Even such a little point as 
the habit of a Median monarch to have music 
played to him at his nightly meal, which is 
implied in Dan. vi. 18, is capable of illustra- 
tion from the profane accounts that have come 
down to us of the manners of the Median 
court. 4 The tone, moreover, of the decree, 
ascribed to Darius, in Dan. vi. 26, 27, is com- 

i Herod, iii. 16 ; Nic. Damasc. Fr. 68. 

2 Zendavesta, Farg. v. to Farg. viii. ; Herod, i. 140 ; Strab. 
xv. 3, § 20. 

3 Herod, iii. 119; Ctes. Exc. Pers. § 56; Plutarch, Vit. 
Artax. c. 2. 

4 See Ancient Monarchies, vol. ii. p. 423. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 189 

pletely harmonious with Medo-Persic ideas, its 
basis being the identification of the Jehovah 
of the Jews with the Zoroastrian Ormazd, 
the one supreme God of the Medo-Persic 
people. 

There is, further, a noticeable harmony be- 
tween profane chronology and that account of 
the lapse of time which may be Harmony be- 
gathered from the book of Daniel. no tes of time 
The book itself is remarkably de- JSronSo 1 ^. 
void of formal chronological statements, all 
the notes of time which occur in it being 
incidental, and, so to speak, casual. We 
find, however, from the first chapter (ver. 
1), that the Captivity commenced in the 
" third year of king Jehoiakim ; " and we 
gather from ch. ix. 2-19, that in the first 
year of Darius the Mede the seventy years 
which the Captivity was to last, according to 
Jeremiah (xxv. 11, 12), had nearly, but not 
quite run out. Now it appears from the 
Second Book of Kings (xxiii. 36 ; xxiv. 12), 
that Jehoiakim's third year preceded by a 
single year the accession of Nebuchadnezzar ; 
and from that time to the capture of Babylon 
by Cyrus, on which followed Darius the 
Mede's reign, was a period (according to 
Berosus and Ptolemy *) of sixty-seven years. 

1 See the "Canon" of Ptolemy; and compare Beros. ap. - 
Joseph, c. Ap. i. 21. 



190 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

It would thus be in the sixty-eighth year of 
the Captivity that Daniel, having " under- 
stood by books the number of the years 
whereof the word of the Lord came to Jere- 
miah the prophet," sought unto the Lord 
" with fasting and sackcloth and ashes," and 
besought Him to " turn away his fury and 
anger from Jerusalem " (Dan. ix. 16), and 
" cause his face to shine upon his sanctuary " 
(lb. 17), and " do and defer not" (lb. 19). 
Such a near approach of the termination of 
the prophetical period is exactly what the 
preface to Daniel's prayer (verse 2), and the 
intensity of the prayer suggest, or (perhaps it 
may be said) imply 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 191 



CHAPTER VII. 

EZRA, NEHEMIAH, AND ESTHER. 

In Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, we have 
the history of the Jews for the space of a little 
more than a century after their character of 

* y # t the history in 

return from the Captivity, — from these books. 

L d Points in them 

about B. c. o38 to 434. The posi- which admit of 

, , profane illus- 

tion of the people is entirely new. tration. 
No longer independent, no longer ruled by 
their native kings they form an integral por- 
tion of the great Persian Empire, the em- 
pire founded by Cyrus, and established by his 
successors over the whole of the vast tract 
lying between the river Sutlej and the African 
desert. Judasa is a sort of sub-satrapy of 
Syria, ruled, indeed, by its own special gov- 
ernor, but more or less under the supervision 
of the Syrian satrap, or " governor of the 
tract across the river " (Ezra v. 3). Its civil 
history, so far as it can be said to have one, 
consists in the treatment of its people by the 
several monarchs who occupy the Persian 
throne, and in the contentions which it carries 
on with neighboring tribes, who exhibit to- 



192 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

wards it a marked hostility. There is not 
much in the narrative that is of a nature to 
receive illustration from profane sources. The 
position of the people is too humble, their 
proceedings are of two little importance, 
to attract the attention of the historical in- 
quirer, or to be regarded as deserving of rec- 
ord by the historiographer. The points of 
contact with profane history are almost limited 
to two, — the succession and character of the 
Persian kings, and the organization of their 
court and kingdom. 

The succession of the Persian kings is given 
in Ezra as follows : Cyrus, Ahasuerus, Ar- 
succession of taxerxes, Darius, Artaxerxes 1 ; but 
Sng^coSectiy ^ ^ s not apparent whether this 
given. succession is strictly continuous, or 

whether there are any omissions in it. Pro- 
fane authorities tell us that the actual kings in 
their complete order were, Cyrus, Cambyses, 
Smerdis, Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, etc. It 
is evident, on a comparison of these two lists, 
that that in Ezra is defective by the omission 
of Xerxes ; but that otherwise it corresponds 
to the list of profane historians, with the ex- 
ception that two of the monarchs — the second 
and the third — are called by other names. 
That royal personages among the Persians 

1 See Ezra ch. iv. 5, 6. 7, 24 : and ch. vii. 1. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 193 

had sometimes more names than one appears 
sufficiently from statements in the Greek his- 
torians. The Smerdis of Herodotus is the 
Tanyoxarces of Ctesias. Darius II. was, 
before his accession to the throne, called 
Ochus. 1 The original name of Artaxerxes 
Mnemon was Arsaces. 2 It would seem that 
Cambyses must have been known to some of 
his subjects as Ahasuerus ( = Xerxes), and 
Smerdis as Artaxerxes, though we have no 
other evidence of the fact than that which 
Ezra furnishes. With regard to the omission 
of Xerxes from the list in Ezra, it results from 
the occurrence (which is very evident) of a 
gap between the first and the second part of 
the work, no events being related between the 
passover in the sixth year of Darius (b. c. 
515), and the journey of Ezra from Babylon 
to Jerusalem, in the .seventh year of Artax- 
erxes (b. c. 458). The omission of Xerxes 
by Ezra is, happily, compensated for by the 
narrative of Esther, which belongs wholly to 
his reign, and which, having its scene laid at 
Susa, is very much fuller of details with 
respect to Persian manners than the other 
books belonging to this period. 

The character of Cyrus, and his actions, as 

1 Ctesias, Excerpt. Persic. § 49. 

2 Ibid. § 57 ; Plutarch, Vit. Artaxerx. § 2. 

13 



194 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

indicated by Ezra (and by Daniel), are in 
character and remarkable agreement with the 

actions of Uy- ,. 1 • i c i • 

rus agree with notices winch we possess oi him in 
countrof him. profane authors. Of all the Per- 
sian monarchs, he was the one most distin- 
guished for mildness and clemency ; 1 the one 
to whom the sufferings of a captive nation, 
torn violently from its home and subjected to 
seventy years of grievous oppression, would 
most forcibly have appealed. Again, he was 
an earnest Zoroastrian, 2 a worshipper of the 
" Great God, Ormazd," the special, if not the 
sole object of adoration among the ancient 
Persians ; he was a hater of idolatry, and of 
the shameless rites which accompanied it, and 
he would naturally sympathize with such a 
people as the Jews, — a people whose relig- 
ious views bore so great a resemblance to his 
own. Thus the restoration of the Jews by 
Cyrus, though an act almost without a paral- 
lel in the history of the world, was only natu- 
ral under the circumstances ; and the narra- 
tive of it, which Ezra gives us, is in harmony 
at once with the other Scriptural notices of 
the monarch, 3 and with profane accounts of 

1 Xenophon calls him if/vxyv ^i^avdpiairorarovj "of a most hu- 
mane disposition" (Cyrop. i. 2, § 1). Berosus, Herodotus, and 
Ctesias all remark upon his clemency. 

2 Xen. Cyrop. viii. 7, § 3; Nic. Dam. Fr. 66. 

3 The immediate restoration, in his first year (Ez'a i. 1), and 






OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 195 

him. The edicts which he issued on the oc- 
casion (Ezra i. 2-4 and vi. 3-5) are alike 
suitable to his religious belief and to the gen- 
erosity of his character. His acknowledgment 
of one " Lord God of Heaven " (Ezra i. 2) ; 
his identification of this God with the Jeho- 
vah of the Jews ; and his pious confession that 
he has received all the kingdoms over which 
he rules from this source, breathe the spirit of 
the old Persian religion, 1 of which Cyrus was 
a sincere votary ; while the delivery of the 
golden vessels from out of the treasury (i. 7— 
11 ; vi. 5) ; the allowance of the whole 
expense of rebuilding the Temple out of the 
royal revenue (vi. 4) ; and the general direc- 
tions to all Persian subjects to " help with 
silver and with gold, and with goods, and 
with beasts " (i. 4), accord well with the mu- 
nificence which is said to have been one of 
his leading characteristics. 2 It may be added 



the words, " the Lord God of Heaven has charged me to build 
Him a house at Jerusalem," are well explained by the circum- 
stances related in Dan. v. and by Isaiah xliv. 28. The fame of 
the "handwriting upon the wall," and the high dignity to which 
Daniel had been raised (Dan. v. 29), would necessarily bring 
him into personal contact with Cyrus upon the capture of the 
city ; and he would then naturally communicate to Cyrus the 
prophecy of Isaiah. 

1 Ancient Monarchies, by Prof. Rawlinson, vol. hi. pp. 347- 
357. 

2 Xen. Cyrop. i. 3, § 7; 4, §§ 11 and 26, etc. 



196 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

that the political liberality which is apparent 
in the assignment of so important a govern- 
ment as that of Babylonia to a Mede, is also 
characteristic of this king, who appointed two 
Medes in succession to govern the rich sa- 
trapy of Lydia, 1 and (according to one ac- 
count 2 ) assigned the government of Carmania 
to a Babylonian. 

The discovery of the original decree of Cy- 
rus, early in the reign of Darius Hystaspis, 
Discovery of " at Achmetha (or Ecbatana), in 

his decree at , -, -, , , , . . , , . » 

Ecbatana the palace that is in the province ot 
hlSToTresid- the Medes" (vi. 2), is one of those 
little points of agreement between 
the sacred and the profane which are impor- 
tant because their very minuteness is an indi- 
cation that they are purely casual and unin- 
tentional. When Ezra wrote, the Persian 
kings resided usually at Susa, or at Babylon, 
occasionally visiting, in the summer time, 
Ecbatana or Persepolis. Susa and Babylon, 
as the ordinary stations of the court, were 
the places at which the archives were laid 
up. But Cyrus seems to have held his court 
permanently at Ecbatana? and consequently 
it was there that he kept his archives, and 

1 Herod, i. 156 and 162. 

2 Abyden. ap. Euseb. Chron. Can. i. 10. 

3 Herod, i. 153; Ctes. Exc. Pers. §§ 2-4. 






OF. THE OLD TESTAMENT. 197 

there that his decree was found. Ezra, writ- 
ing under Artaxerxes, nearly a century later, 
is not likely to have known the habits of 
Cyrus ; but he relates a fact which is in exact 
harmony with them. 

With regard to Cambyses, the successor of 
Cyrus, and the usurper who reigned under the 
name of Smerdis, the book of Ezra Bursal of the 
tells us but little. All that we rus by the next 

i • ,i ,i i ,i king but one, 

learn concerning tneni is, that botn in harmony 

V -i. J -U xl with his relig- 

prmces were solicited by the ene- ious position, 
mies of the Jews to hinder the rebuilding of 
Jerusalem, and that while Cambyses took no 
action upon the communication made to him, 
Smerdis, on the contrary, replied by a letter, 
in which he directly forbade the continuation 
of the work commenced under Cyrus and con- 
tinued under his son and successor. 1 This de- 
parture from the policy of the two previous 
kings is rendered intelligible by the peculiar 
position of the monarch, as declared to us by 
profane writers, 2 and more fully explained in 
the great inscription of Darius at Behistun. 3 
Smerdis was a Magi an, attached to a worship 
directly antagonistic to the faith of Zoroaster, 
and bent on reversing the policy of his two 

1 See Ezra iv. 6-24. 

2 Herod, iii. 61; Ctes. Exc. Pers. § 10; Justin, i. 9. 

3 Col. i. par. 11-14. 



198 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

predecessors in matters of religion. The fact 
that Cyrus and Cambyses sympathized with 
the Jews in respect of their belief, and allowed 
the restoration of their Temple and capital, 
would be sufficient reason to him for prohibit- 
ing it. Hence the severe edict which he is- 
sued (Ezra iv. 17-22), in which it is worthy 
of remark that none of that faith in a Supreme 
God appears which characterizes the decrees 
of Cyrus. 1 

Of Darius, the next king to Smerdis, we 
have an interesting notice in the fifth and 
Relations of sixth chapters of Ezra. It appears 
STJjews^a'nd that the Jews no sooner felt that 
S! suitable this king was safely seated upon 
teAndcfr^ 5 " the throne, than, regarding the 

enhances. ^^ Qf Smerdis ag nuU and yoi ^ 

they resumed the work, from which they had 
been compelled to desist, and pressed it for- 
ward with increased ardor, the two prophets, 
Zechariah and Haggai, helping them (Ezra 
v. 2). This bold course is explained by the 
known Zoroastrian zeal of Darius, who tells 
us in his great inscription that he commenced 
his reign by reversing the religious policy 
of his predecessor, " rebuilding the temples 

1 The Magians worshipped the elements, earth, air, water, 
and fire. Their creed was Pantheism, which is a form of 
Atheism. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 199 

which the Magian had destroyed, and restor- 
ing the religious chants and the worship which 
he had abolished." 1 The Jews would natu- 
rally feel assured that they might count upon 
his sympathy, and so would resume the work 
without waiting for express warrant. Their 
enemies, however, might naturally be unwill- 
ing to relinquish the advantage which they had 
gained, until they had at least made an effort 
to retain it. Accordingly they addressed a 
long petition to the new monarch, informing 
him of the steps taken by the Jews, mention- 
ing the ground on which they justified their 
conduct, namely, the decree of Cyrus, and sug- 
gesting that search should be made at Baby- 
lon, to see whether the archives contained any 
such decree or no (Ezra v. 6-17). They may 
have suspected that Smerdis would have de- 
stroyed any such document while he had the 
archives in his power, and have hoped that it 
would be impossible to produce it. The de- 
cree, however, was found at Ecbatana (vi. 2) ; 
and Darius at once put forth an edict, reciting 
it, and requiring the Syrian satrap and his sub- 
ordinates to lend the Jews every help, instead 
of hindering them. The terms of the edict suit 
in every way the character and circumstances 
of Darius. He speaks of the Jewish temple 

1 Behist. Inscr. col. i. par. 14, § 5 and § 6. 



200 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

as " the house of God " (verses 7 and 8), 
and of Jehovah as " the God of Heaven " 
(verses 9 and 10) ; he approves, as a Zoroas- 
trian would, 1 of the offering of sacrifices to 
the Supreme Being (lb.) ; he values the 
prayers which he feels assured the Jews will 
address to Jehovah on his behalf (verse 10) ; 
and he invokes a curse 2 on those who shall in- 
jure or destroy the sacred edifice in which 
such prayers will be offered (verse 12). Fur- 
ther, he implies that he has already " sons " 
(verse 10), though he has but just ascended 
the throne, a fact which is confirmed by He- 
rodotus ; 3 he speaks of the " tribute " (verse 
8), which (according to the same author 4 ) he 
was the first to impose on the provinces ; and 
he threatens the disobedient with that pun- 
ishment of impaling (verse 11) with which he 
most commonly punished offenders. 5 

Of Xerxes, the son and successor of Darius, 
the book of Ezra tells us nothing ; but it is 
now generally allowed by critics 6 that he is 

1 Herod, i. 132; Ancient Monarchies, vol. iii. pp. 349-351. 

2 Compare the curses invoked by this king on those who 
should injure his inscriptions (Behist. Inscr. col. iv. par. 17). 

3 Herod, vii. 2. 

4 Ibid. iii. 89. 

5 Behist. Inscr. col. ii. par. 13, § 7; par. 14, § 16; col. iii. 
par. 8, § 2, etc. Herod, iii. 159. 

6 As De Wette, Bertheau, Gesenius, Havernick, Dean Mil- 
man, Bp. Cotton, etc. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 201 

the monarch at whose court is laid the scene 
of the book of Esther. Assuming Portrait of 

Y Xerxes in the 

this identity (which follows both book of Esther 

J v . . in close ac- 

from the name assigned him, and cordauce with 

° . , profane ac- 

from the notes of time contamed counts of Mm. 
in Esther), we may remark that the char- 
acter of the monarch, so graphically placed 
before us by the sacred historian, bears the 
closest possible resemblance to that which is 
ascribed by the classical writers to the cele- 
brated son of Darius. " Proud, self- willed, 
amorous, careless of contravening Persian cus- 
toms ; reckless of human life, yet not actually 
bloodthirsty ; impetuous, facile, changeable, — 
the Ahasuerus of Esther corresponds in all re- 
spects to the Greek portraiture of Xerxes ; " 2 
which is not (be it observed) the mere pic- 
ture of an Oriental despot, but has various 
marked peculiarities that distinctly individu- 
alize it. And so with respect to his actions. 
In the third year of Ahasuerus was held a 
great feast and assembly in Shushan, the pal- 
ace (Esth. i. 8). In the third year of Xerxes 
was held an assembly at Susa, to arrange the 
Grecian war. 1 In the seventh year of Ahas- 

1 The Hebrew Ahashverosh is the exact Semitic equivalent 
of the Persian Khshayarshd, which the Greeks rendered by 
Xerxes. 

2 Prof. Rawlinson's Bampton Lectures for 1859, p. 186. 



202 



HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 



aerus " fair young virgins were sought for 
aim," and he replaced Vashti by marrying 
Esther (lb. ii. 16). In the seventh year of 
Xerxes, he returned defeated from Greece, 
and consoled himself for his disasters by the 
pleasures of the seraglio. 2 The monarch who 
scourged the sea, and offered human victims 
in sacrifice, 3 might well outrage Persian feel- 
ing by requiring Vashti to present herself 
unveiled before his courtiers (lb. i. 10-12). 
The prince, who gave a sister-in-law, whom 
he had professed to love, into the power of a 
favorite wife to torture and mutilate, 4 would 
naturally not shrink from handing over a 
tribe for which he had no regard, to the ten- 
der mercies of a favorite minister. One so 
changeable and so much under female influ- 
ence as Xerxes always showed himself, might 
readily, under the circumstances related, alter 
his mind, and resolve to save the race which 
he had recently given over to destruction. 
And the same almost superstitious regard for 
his word, when once it had been passed, which 
we find recorded of him in Herodotus, 5 would 
prevent him from simply revoking his edi2t, 
and determine him to meet the difficulty in 



1 Herod, vii. 8. 
3 Ibid. ix. 108, 109. 
s Ibid. ix. 109. . 



2 Ibid. vii. 35, 114. 
4 Ibid. ix. 111. 






OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 203 

another way. To the king who had lost one 
or two millions of soldiers in Greece, it might 
not seem very terrible to allow fighting for 
one or two days in most of the great cities 
of the Empire. Finally we can well under- 
stand that, after the exhaustion of the treas- 
ury by the Greek Avar, King Ahasuerus would 
have had to lay an increased tribute upon the 
land and upon the isles of the sea (lb. x. 1), 
Cyprus, Aradus, the island of Tyre, etc. 

Of Artaxerxes, the son and successor of 
Xerxes, we have two Biblical notices, — one in 
Ezra (vii. 7-26), and the other in character of 
Nehemiah (i. and ii.). We learn drawn by tv 
from the former of these two pas- rajah, agrees 
sages, that, like Cyrus and Darius, given by 
he held the identity of Jehovah Diodorus. 
with his own supreme God, Ormazd (verses 
12, 21, 23), and that he approved of the Jew- 
ish worship, which he supported by offerings 
(verse 15), by grants from the state and the 
provincial treasuries (verses 20-22), and by 
a threat of severe pains and penalties (verse 
26) against its impugners. The passage of 
Nehemiah throws light upon his personal 
character, which appears by the picture drawn 
to have been mild and amiable. The Orien- 
tal monarch, who would notice the sad expres- 
sion on the countenance of an attendant, 



204 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

make kind inquiry into its cause, and grant 
readily the request, which, while it incon- 
venienced himself, would bring back a cheer- 
ful look to his servant's face (Neh. ii. 1-8), 
must have been unlike the ordinary run of 
despots, and cannot possibly have been devoid 
of kindness of heart, good-nature, and other 
estimable qualities. Accordingly, we find 
that Longimanus is represented in an ex- 
ceptional light by the Greek writers, one of 
whom calls him " the first of the Persian 
monarchs for mildness and magnanimity," 1 
while another celebrates the equity and mod- 
eration of his government, which was (he 
says) highly approved by the Persians. 2 Of 
the religious views of Longimanus we have 
no direct profane evidence ; but there is no 
reason to doubt that he maintained the Zo- 
roastrian sentiments of his ancestors. 

The organization of the Persian court and 
kingdom which the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, 
organization an( l Esther, represent to us com- 
court e and Sian prises the following points. The 
de^Sed/iB? monarch is despotic, in a certain 
and^Se? 61 ' sense j but he acts with the advice 
miah. £ a C0U ncil, consisting ordinarily 

of the " seven princes of Persia and Media, 

1 Plutarch, Vit. Artax. § 1. 

2 Diod. Sic. xi. 71, § 2. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 205 



which see the king's face and sit the first in 
the kingdom " (Esth. i. 14 ; comp. Ezra vii. 
14). He is also controlled to some extent 
by a " law of the Persians and the Medes, 
which alters not " (Esth. i. 19). His king- 
dom is divided into a number of districts 
or provinces — as many as one hundred and 
twenty-seven are mentioned (Esth. i. 1), — 
over which are set satraps (lb. iii. 12 ; viii. 9), 
or other governors (lb.), who " have main- 
tenance from the palace " (Ezra iv. 14), col- 
lect and guard the revenue (lb. vii. 21), which 
is partly paid in money, and partly in kind 
(lb. verse 22), and report to the court if any 
danger threatens the tract under their charge 
(lb. iv. 11-22; v. 3-17). The court com- 
municates with the satraps, or other gov- 
ernors, by means of a system of mounted posts 
(Esth. iii. 13 ; viii. 10, 14), which rapidly 
convey the royal orders to the remotest parts 
of the empire. The royal orders are authen- 
ticated by being signed with the king's signet 
(lb. iii. 10, 12, etc.). Record offices are estab- 
lished in different places, and the archives of 
the empire are deposited in them (Ezra vi. 1, 
2). It is usual for the monarch to have a 
chief, or favorite minister, to whom he dele- 
gates, in a great measure, the government of 
his vast empire (Esth. iii. 1, 10 ; viii. 8 ; x. 2, 



206 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

3). Special notice is taken of any service 
rendered to the king by a subject ; every such 
service is put on record (lb. ii. 23 ; vi. 2) ; 
and the principle is laid down that royal 
benefactors are to receive an adequate reward 
(lb. vi. 3). The king resides ordinarily either 
at Susa (lb. i. 2 ; Neh. i. 1), or at Babylon 
(Ezra vii. 9 ; xiii. 6). His palace at Susa is 
a magnificent building, remarkable for its 
" pillars of marble," its " pavement of red, 
blue, white, and black," and its " hangings of 
white, green, and blue, which are fastened 
with cords of fine linen and purple to the pil- 
lars " (Esth. i. 6). The palace is furnished 
with couches of gold and silver, on which the 
guests recline when they banquet (lb.). 
The drinking vessels are of solid gold (lb. ver. 
7). Wine is served to the king (Neh. ii. 1) 
and to his guests (Esth. i. 7) by cupbearers. 
Eunuchs are employed at the court, and fill 
positions of importance (lb. i. 10.; ii. 3, 21). 
The king has one chief wife, who partakes in 
his royal dignity, and numerous concubines 
(lb. i. 11 ; ii. 3-14). Women are secluded ; 
they feast apart from the men (lb. i. 9), and 
in the palace occupy the Gyna?ceum, or 
"house of the women " (lb. ii. 9). It is a 
rare favor for even a single noble to be invited 
to banquet with the king and the queen (lb. 






OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 207 

v. 12). To intrude on the king's presence 
without invitation is a capital offense, and is 
punished with death, unless the king please to 
condone it (lb. iv. 11). 

Here, again, as in the parallel cases of 
Eg}-pt and Assyria, the picture drawn is in 
thorough accord with what we know Agreement of 
of the ancient Persians from pro- with profane 

» . , i c , l accounts and 

fane writers and from their own with the Per- 
ry,, , skn monu- 

monuments. ±r»e Persian despot- ments. 
ism is represented by Herodotus as modified 
by the existence of a council, 1 and by the 
idea of an unalterable law, which the king 
might indeed break, but which he could not 
feel himself justified in breaking. 2 The ex- 
istence of " seven princes " at the head of 
the nobility is indicated by the conspiracy 
of the seven chiefs who organized the revolt 
against Smerdis, 3 as well as by the special 
privileges which attached to six great families 
besides that of the monarch. 4 The division 
of the empire into numerous satrapies and 
sub-satrapies is generally attested by the 
Greek writers, and appears also in the inscrip- 
tions, and though so large a number of prov- 
inces as one hundred and twenty-seven is not 

1 Herod, vii. 8. 

2 Ibid. iii. 31 ; ix. 111. Compare Plut. Vit. Artax. § 27. 

3 Ibid. iii. 70-79. Compare Behist. Inscr. col. iv. par. 18. 

4 Herod, iii. 84. 



208 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

mentioned elsewhere than in Esther, yet we 
may trace through history a gradual increase 
in their number, 1 and we can readily under- 
stand that the vain-glorious Xerxes may have 
swelled the list by way of ostentation. The 
duty of the satraps to guard the tranquillity 
of the provinces, to collect the tribute, and to 
store it in provincial treasuries until the time 
came for transmitting it to the court, is ap- 
parent from the accounts which the best 
authors give of the satrapial office. 2 Besides 
the money tribute demanded from each prov- 
ince, it is a well-known fact that a considerable 
payment had to be made in kind. 3 The Persian 
system of mounted posts was peculiar to them 
amongst the ancient peoples, and is described 
at length both by Xenophon and by Herod- 
otus. 4 Its special object was the conveyance 
of the royal commands to the provincial gov- 
ernors. 5 A royal order, or jirman, was al- 

1 Darius is said by Herodotus to have instituted originally 
twenty satrapies. But in the Behistun Inscription (col. i. par. 
6) this monarch reckons the provinces as 21 ; in an inscrip- 
tion at Persepolis he enumerates 23 ; and in that upon his tomb 
at Nakhsh-i-Rustam, he mentions 29. Herodotus makes the 
nations composing the armament of Xerxes exceed 60. 

2 See Xen. Cyrop. viii. 6, § 1-6, and Herod, iii. 89. 

3 Herod, i. 192 ; iii. 91, etc. 

4 Xen. Cyrop. viii. 6, § 17, 18 ; Herod, viii. 98. On the 
employment of camels, no less than horses, in the postal service 
(Esth. viii. 10), see Strabo, xv. 2, § 10. 

5 Xen. Cyrop. viii. 6, § 18 ; Herod, iii. 126. 






OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 209 

ways authenticated by being signed with the 
royal signet. 1 The composition and preser- 
vation of state archives is attested by Ctesias, 2 
who declared that he drew his Persian history 
from "royal parchments," to which he had 
access during his stay at the court of Artax- 
erxes Mnemon. Favorite ministers, to whom 
they delegate the greater part of their duties, 
are found to have been employed by most 
of the Persian monarchs after the time of 
Darius. 3 The recognition of a distinct class 
of " Royal Benefactors " appears to have been 
a special Persian institution. The names of 
such persons were entered upon a formal list ; 
and it was regarded as the bounden duty of 
the monarch to see that they were adequately 
rewarded. 4 

So, too, with respect to the court. That 
Susa was its ordinary seat is apparent from 
Herodotus, Ctesias, and the Greek writers 
generally, while that it was fixed during a 
part of the year at Babylon, is declared by 
Xenophon, Plutarch, and others. 5 The mag- 

i Herod, iii. 128. 

2 Ap. Diod. Sic. ii. 32. 

3 Herod, vii. 5 ; Ctes. Exc. Pers. § 20, 29, 49 ; Diod. Sic. 
xvi. 50, etc. 

4 Herod, iii. 140 ; viii. 85, 90 ; Thucyd. 129. 

5 Xen. Ctjrop. viii. 8, § 22; Plut. de Exil. p. 604; Ctes. Exc 
Pers. §§ 12, 28, etc. 

14 



210 



HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 



nificence of the Susian palace is evidenced, 
not merely by the accounts of ancient authors, 
but by the existing remains, which exhibit 
four groups 'of "marble pillars" exquisitely 
carved, springing from a pavement composed 
chiefly of blue limestone, and constructed (in 
the opinion of the excavators) with a view 
to the employment of curtains or hangings be- 
tween the columns, an arrangement thoroughly 
suitable to the site and climate. 1 Greek 
writers describe at length the splendor of the 
palace furniture, whereon the precious metals 
were prodigally lavished ; 2 the number and 
variety of the officers, principally eunuchs ; 3 
the richness and grandeur of the banquets ; 4 
the seclusion of the women ; 5 and the like. 
They confirm the representations made of 
the vast size of the seraglio, 6 and the superior 
dignity of one queen consort. 7 They tell us 
that the several wives approached the monarch 
" in their turn." 8 And they clearly intimate 



1 See Loftus, Chaldma and Susiana, pp. 365-375. 

2 Athen. Deipnos. iv. p. 145, A; xii. p. 514, C; iEsch. Pers. 
1. 161; Philostrat. Imag. ii. 32. 

3 Xen. Hell. vii. 1, § 38; Cyrop. viii. 8, § 20 

4 Athen. Deipn. iv. pp. 145, 146. 

5 Herod, iii. 58; Plut. Vit. Artax. § 27; Diod. Sic. xi. 56, § 7- 

6 Plut. Vit. Artax. § 27; Q. Curt. iii. 3. 

7 See Ancient Monarchies, vol. iii. p. 216. 

8 Herod, iii. 69. Compare Esth. ii. 12, 15. ' 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 211 

that intrusion on the king's privacy was an 
offense punishable with death. 1 

Remarkable as is this agreement of the 
books under consideration with profane his- 
tory, and especially with the ac- charges 
counts which have come down to us against the 

book of 

of Persian habits, ideas, and prac- Esther, 
tices, there have not been wanting persons to 
charge, at any rate, one of them — the book 
of Esther — with historical inaccuracy, and 
even with " containing a number of errors in 
regard to Persian customs." 2 It would seem, 
therefore, to be necessary, before bringing this 
chapter to a conclusion, that a few words 
should be said in reply to these charges. 

The historical inaccuracies alleged to be 
contained in Esther are the following : (1.) 
Amestris, it is said (who cannot be l. Alleged 

.^ . . .. ill historical in- 

Esther, since she was the daughter accuracies. 
of a Persian noble, Otanes), was the real 
Queen Consort of Xerxes, from the beginning 
of his reign to the end ; and, therefore, the 
whole story of Esther being made queen, and 
of her great power and influence, is impos- 
sible. (2.) Mordecai, Esther's first cousin, 
having been carried into captivity with Jeco- 
niah (Esth. ii. 6), in B. c. 588, must have been 

i Herod, iii. 72, 77, 84, etc. 

2 De Wette, Einhitung, § 198 a. 



212 HISTOEICAL ILLUSTEATIONS 

at least 129 years old in B. c. 474, Xerxes' 
twelfth year, and Esther must, consequently, 
have been then too old to have influence 
through her beauty. (3.) Artabanus, the 
captain of the guard, was Grand Vizier, and 
ruled Xerxes at the time when Hainan and 
Mordecai are given that position. Let us 
examine these " inaccuracies " in their order. 
(1.) Amestris was undoubtedly, during the 
greater part of his reign, the chief wife of 
These "inac- Xerxes. He married her in the 

curacies " . . 

examined. life-time of his father, and she out- 
lived him, and held the rank of Queen Mother 
under his son and successor, Artaxerxes. She 
cannot be the Esther of Scripture ; but there 
is nothing to prevent her from being Vashti, 
whose disgrace may have been only tempo- 
rary. Or possibly Vashti and Esther may 
both have been "secondary wives," though 
the title of Queen is given to them. 1 A 
young " secondary wife " might obtain a tem- 
porary influence over the monarch beyond 
that of the Queen Consort, though the power 
of the latter, not resting merely upon royal 
fancy, would outlast that of any such rival. 
We know far too little of the domestic life of 
Xerxes from profane sources to have any right 

1 See the articles on Esther and Vashti in Smith's Biblical 
Dictionary. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 213 

to pronounce the position which Esther is 
made to occupy in his harem from his seventh 
to his twelfth year " impossible," or even im- 
probable. 

(2.) It is not clear that Mordecai is said in 
Esther to have been carried into captivity with 
Jeconiah. The passage referred to (Esth. ii. 
5, 6) is ambiguous. It may be, and probably 
is Kish, Mordecai's great grandfather, of whom 
the assertion is made in verse 6, that he " had 
been carried away from Jerusalem with the 
captivity which had been carried away with 
Jeconiah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, King of Bab- 
ylon, had carried away." This construction 
of the passage, which the Hebrew idiom fully 
allows, would accord completely with the date 
of Xerxes. 1 

(3.) There is no evidence at what time in 
Xerxes' reign he fell under the influence of 
Artabanus, the captain of the guard. We 
only know that this chief ruled him towards 
the close of his reign. 2 It is therefore quite 
possible that between the death of Mardonius, 
B. c. 479, and the rise of Artabanus to power, 
first Haman and then Mordecai may have held 

1 * The verb in this case belongs to the nearer subject instead 
of a remoter one. This consistency with the chronology as thus 
indicated by other data is of itself a reason for reckoning heie 
from Kish and not from Mordecai. — H. 

^ Ctes. Exc. Pers. S 29. 



214 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

the position assigned them in Esther. Indeed, 
there are some grounds for identifying Mor- 
decai with a person who is expressly said 
to have been very influential with Xerxes, 
namely, Natacas, or Matacas, the eunuch. 
For the, name, Matacas, would probably be 
rendered in Chaldee by Mordecai ; J and there 
is sufficient reason for believing that Morde- 
cai belonged to the class of persons to whom 
Ctesias assigns Matacas. 2 

Of the alleged " errors in regard to Persian 
customs," the following are the principal. 
(2.) Alleged 0-0 A Persian king, it is said, 
glrcuo Per- would never have invited his Queen 
sian customs. to a carousa L (2.) He could not 

legally, and therefore it is supposed he could 
not possibly marry a wife not belonging to 
one of the seven great Persian families. (3.) 
Such honors as are said to have been conferred 
on Mordecai (Esth. vi. 8-11), being in their 
nature royal, would never have been allowed 
by a Persian king to a subject. (4.) No 
Persian king would have issued two such 
murderous decrees as are ascribed to Ahasue- 
rus, or have allowed a subject race to massa- 
cre 75,000 Persians. 

In reply, we may observe (1) that the Per- 

1 See Bp. A. Hervey's article on Mordecai in Smith's 
Biblical Dictionary, vol. ii. p. 420, and vol. iii. p. 2010, Amer. ed. 

2 Exc. Pers. § 20 and § 27. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 215 

sian abhorrence of such an act as exhibiting 
the Queen unveiled to a set of rev- These "er- 

i ..,.,:, „ rors " exam- 

elers is implied in the refusal of ined. 
Vashti (Esth. i. 11) ; and that the question 
of the possibility or impossibility of the thing 
occurring is merely a question of the lengths 
to which a Persian monarch would go in out- 
raging propriety and violating established 
usage. Now when Cambyses shot the son of 
one of his nobles, merely to prove the steadi- 
ness of his hand, 1 and when Xerxes called on 
his brother Masistes to divorce his wife with- 
out even a pretext, 2 they shocked their sub- 
jects and outraged propriety as much as 
Ahasuerus did when he sent his order to 
Vashti. There were, in fact, no limits which 
a Persian monarch might not, and did not, 
when he chose, overstep, nor any customs 
which he held absolutely sacred. And the 
character of Xerxes would make such an out- 
rage as that related more probable under 
him than under other kings. Hence even De 
Wette allows that " the invitation to Vashti 
is possible on account of the advancing cor- 
ruption in Xerxes' time and through the folly 
of Xerxes himself." 3 (2.) The marriage 

1 Herod, iii. 35. 2 ibid. ix. 111. 

3 Einltitung in das A. Test. p. 267 ; [and De Wette-Schrader, 
p. 398 (1869). This later edition contains all of De Wette with 
additions by Schrader, supplementary or corrective.] 



216 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

of Ahasuerus with a Jewess, even if we re- 
gard it as a marriage in the fullest sense, 
would not be more illegal or more abhorrent 
to Persian notions than Cambyses' marriage 
with his full sister. 1 It is therefore just as 
likely to have taken place. If, on the other 
hand, it was a marriage of the secondary kind, 
the law with respect to the king's wives being 
taken from the seven great families would 
not apply to it. (3.) The honors granted to 
Mordecai were certainly very unusual in Per- 
sia. They consisted in three 2 things, all of 
which were capital offenses, if done without the 
royal permission. But we find Persian kings 
allowing their subjects in these or parallel 
acts occasionally, either for a special purpose, 
or even out of mere good-nature. Xerxes, 
on one occasion made his uncle, Artabanus, 
put on his dress, sit for a time on his throne, 
and then go to sleep in his bed. 3 And Artax- 
erxes Mnemon permitted Tiribazus to wear, 
as often as he liked, a robe which had been 
his, and which he had given to him. 4 There 
is nothing really contrary to Oriental notions 
in the allowance to a subject even of royal 

1 Herod, iii. 31. 

2 Wearing the royal apparel, riding on the king's horse, and 
having the crown royal set upon his head (see Esther vi. 8). 

3 Herod, vii. 17. 

4 Plutarch, Vit. Artax. § 5. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 217 

honors for a time and under certain circum- 
stances. (4.) The murderous decrees ascribed 
to Ahasuerus have nothing incredible in them 
to one who is familiar with Oriental, or even 
with Persian history. Human life is of little 
account in the East. When Cambyses, on his 
return to Egypt, from an unsuccessful expedi- 
tion into Ethiopia, found the Egyptians cele- 
brating an incarnation of Apis, he gave orders 
that every one who was seen keeping the fes- 
tival should be put to death. 1 When the 
seven conspirators had slain the Pseudo-Smer- 
dis, they proceeded with their friends to mas- 
sacre every Magus whom they could lay their 
hands on. 2 In memory of the event, a feast, 
called Magophonia, was kept every year, 
during which every Magus who showed him- 
self, might be killed by any one. 3 The mas- 
sacres of the Mamelukes and the Janissaries 
are familiar to all. As for the objection that 
a Persian king would never have allowed the 
massacre of " 75,000 Persians" it is based on 
a misconception. The 75,000 were certainly 
not all of them (Esth. ix. 16), and perhaps not 
any of them Persians. They were the Jews' 
enemies, those who set upon them, in the prov- 
inces. Now there was no natural antagonism 

i Herod, iii. 29. 2 Ibid. iii. 79. 

3 Ibid. Compare Ctes. Exc. Pers. § 15. 



218 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

between the Persians and the Jews, while 
there was a very strong antagonism between 
the Jews and such of the subject nations as 
were idolaters. Moreover, the Persians in 
the provinces consisted almost entirely of per- 
sons in the service of the crown, military or 
civil, Avho would have orders from the court, 
at any rate, not to take part against the Jews. 
Thus the persons slain would belong, like the 
Jews themselves, to the subject races, whose 
lives such a monarch as Xerxes held exceed- 
ingly cheap. 

[* It is a peculiarity of this book of Esther 
that the name of Jehovah or God is not once 
mentioned in it. This omission is the less sur- 
prising, because it occurs in a history so full 
of interpositions that reveal the actual pres- 
ence of Him who presides over the destiny of 
men and of nations, and also the power of 
that faith in the unseen One, which made the 
actors in this great national drama so hopeful 
and enduring. Professor Stuart says very 
truly: "The fact that the feast of Purim 1 
has come down to us from time almost imme- 
morial, .... proves as certainly that the 

1 * The feast of Purim, (which means lots) was so called 
ironically by the Jews, with reference to Haman's frustrated 
conspiracy against them (Esther iv. 24; and 2 Mace. xv. 36). 
It was an annual festival of two days, the 14th and 15th of 
the month Adar; i. e. about the middle of March. — H. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 219 

main events in the book of Esther happened, 
as the Declaration of Independence and the 
celebration of the Fourth of July prove that 
we separated from Great Britain and became 
an independent nation. The book of Esther 
is an essential document to explain the feast 
of Purim." The self -asserting character of 
truthfulness which the narrative assumes, as 
illustrated in Dean Milman's sketch of the 
events, speaks strongly in its favor.] 

It would seem, then, that there is really no 
ground for the assertion that the writer of 
Esther has fallen into errors with 

• rr\i Conclusion. 

regard to Persian customs. I he 
book of Esther, no less than the books of 
Nehemiah and Ezra, exhibits a profound ac- 
quaintance with Oriental, and especially with 
Persian notions and modes of thought. Its 
author was undoubtedly a Jew who lived at 
the court of Susa, under the Persian kings, 
and its facts are worthy of our full accept- 
ance. 



220 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 



CHAPTER VIII. 

CONCLUSION. 

The historical books of the Old Testament 
have now been passed in review before the 
Results of the rea der, an d their matter has been, 
inquiry. where it was possible, compared with 

such profane records of the past as are gener- 
ally considered by critics to be most authentic, 
— with the monuments and hieroglyphics of 
Egypt, the cuneiform inscriptions of Baby- 
lonia, Ass}Tia, and Persia, the single extant 
record of Moab, and the writings of the best 
ancient historians, such as Herodotus, Thucy- 
dides, Xenophon, Ctesias, Manetho, Berosus, 
Abydenus, Menander of Ephesus, Nicolas of 
Damascus, and others. The result seems to 
1. very little be, in the first place, that contradic- 

contradiction . . . , , , 

between the tion between the sacred and the 

sacred and the „ , , .. -, 

profane. proiane scarcely occurs, unless it be 

in chronological statements, and that it is even 
there confined within narrow limits. In a 
few places, and a few places only, the Scrip- 
tural record of time, as contained in the ex- 
tant Hebrew text, differs from that of Assyrian 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 221 

monuments or Egyptian historians. 1 The 
difference is in general one of no more than a 
few years ; and in no case after the time of 
Solomon (before which the sacred chronology is 
vague, while profane chronology is uncertain) 
does it amount to so much as half a century. 
It is therefore reasonable to suppose that such 
discrepancies as occur in this matter are acci- 
dental, arising either from different modes of 
computing time, from the corruption of a 
reading, from the carelessness of an engraver, 
or from some similar circumstance. In the 
general outline of human affairs, in the account 
given of the rise and flourishing periods of 
kingdoms, of their succession one 2 ^ 
after another, of their duration, ~ t f M . 

" ' miQute agree- 

their character, their conquests, and ment - 
the order of their sovereigns, the sacred nar- 
rative shows a remarkable agreement with the 
best profane sources, only in a very few places 
bringing before us personages in a position 
of apparent importance, whom we cannot dis- 
tinctly identify with known characters in pro- 
fane history. The cases of this kind which 
still remain as difficulties are two only, those 
of Pul and Darius the Mede. 2 All the other 
Oriental monarchs mentioned by name in the 

1 See above, pp. 154, 155. 

2 See pp. 131-134, and 183-186. 



222 HIST0K1CAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

course of the narrative are, if we possess the 
profane history of the period in any detail, 
capable of being recognized in it. 1 The char- 
acters of the kings, as drawn in Scripture and 
by profane writers, agree. Their actions are 
either such as profane historians record, or 
such as are natural to persons in their position. 
Above all, there is a minute agreement be- 
tween the Scriptural account of the habits, 
customs, and ideas of the several nations, 
which the course of the narrative brings before 
us, and the description of them which is obtain- 
able from their own monuments and from the 
best ancient writers. In four instances — 
those of Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, and Per- 
sia, — our knowledge of the condition of the 
people at the time indicated being exact, and 
copious, if not complete, the comparison may 
be made in extenso ; and it is especially in 
these four instances that the harmony be- 
tween the sacred and the profane is most 
striking. 2 

What, then, is the force of the whole agree- 
ment ? What are we justified in deducing 
conclusions to from it? In the first place it jus- 
these results, tifies us in setting aside as wholly 
inadmissible the theory which not long ago 

1 Page 153. 

2 Pp. 41-48, 70-81, 156-165, 170-173, and 207-211. 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 223 

was so popular in Germany, that the so-called 
historical narratives of the Old Testament are 
legends or myths — tales, i. e. invented by 
moral teachers as a convenient vehicle where- 
by to instil into men's minds moral truths. 
It is clear that the narratives are, in the 
strictest sense of the word, histories, that the 
writers intend to record, and do at any rate in 
the main record, facts ; that the personages of 
whom they speak are real personages, the 
events which they describe real events, which 
actually happened at the times to which they 
assigned them. The only question that can 
be raised is : Do they describe the events as 
they happened, or do they allow themselves to 
embellish them ? In other words, are the 
miraculous portions of the narrative to be ac- 
cepted, or may we safely set them aside ; as 
we do the prodigies, when we read the most 
authentic portions of Herodotus or Livy ? It 
is often said, that whatever historical confir- 
mation of the general narrative of Scripture 
has been discovered recently, there is no such 
confirmation of the miracles. And this is no 
doubt true. The Egyptian, Assyrian, Baby- 
lonian, Moabite, and Persian historiographers 
have not placed on record the miracles which 
were wrought by, and for, or at any rate in 
close connection with, the Jews. It was nob 



224 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

to be expected that they would do so, since 
they never seek to glorify any nation but their 
own. The miracles must stand on their own 
basis, — on the evidence, i. e. of the writers who 
record them, and their trustworthiness as wit- 
nesses to facts. They cannot be cut out of the 
narrative, because they are integral portions of 
it, often constituting its turning-point, and 
being the very thing that the writer is bent 
on recording, so that without the miracles his 
narrative would be pointless and meaningless. 
What we have to ask ourselves is, Which is 
more likely, that writers, bent on relating a 
set of false miracles, should be careful to make 
their narrative conform, in all its minutioe, to 
historic accuracy, an accuracy extending to 
numerous points on which they could not ex- 
pect their readers to have any knowledge, or 
that the miracles which they record were act- 
ually performed, and are related by them with 
the same truthfulness which is found to char- 
acterize the rest of their history ? Unless we 
start with a foregone conclusion that miracles 
are impossible, we can scarcely fail to embrace 
the latter hypothesis rather than the former. 

Briefly, the historic accuracy of the sacred 
writers in those parts of their narrative which 
we can test, goes far to authenticate their 
whole narrative. The miraculous facts bein<* 



OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 225 

inextricably intertwined with the facts which 
are natural and ordinary, it is necessary either 
to accept or reject both together. But the 
laws of historical criticism do not allow us to 
reject the ordinary facts, since they satisfy all 
the tests by which real is known from pre- 
tended history. We are bound, therefore, to 
accept the extraordinary. 

Again, a conclusion which forces itself on us 
irresistibly when we compare the sacred books 
with the best profane sources, is that the Scrip- 
ture narrative must have been written, in the 
main, b}' eye-witnesses of the events recorded : 
the Pentateuch probably by Moses ; Joshua 
by one of the " elders " who outlived him ; 
Samuel by Samuel ; Kings and Chronicles by 
the prophets contemporary with the several 
monarchs ; Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah by 
the persons whose names they bear ; Esther 
by one who lived under Xerxes. But if so, 
the writers could not possibly be ignorant of 
the truth. And no one now imagines that 
they intended to deceive. Strauss says, " It 
would most unquestionably be an argument of 
decisive weight in favor of the credibility of 
the Biblical history, could it indeed be shown 
that it was written by eye-witnesses." 1 This 
is exactly what the minute accuracy of the 
sacred writers, and their close agreement with 

i LebenJesu, § 13. 



226 HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 

contemporary records and the best profane 
historians, shows almost to a certainty. The 
credibility of the Biblical history would thus 
seem to be, even according to Rationalism 
itself, established. 1 

l * j$ 0T can it ij e irrelevant to add here, that this line of 
argument so applicable to the Old Testament, may be applied 
with still greater force to the writings of the New Testament ; 
for the points of contact between these and contemporary his- 
tory are still more numerous and diversified, and admit of a more 
ready verification. Take, for example, the book of the Acts of 
the Apostles. The history which we read in the Acts connects 
itself at numerous points with the social customs of different and 
distant nations; with the fluctuating civil affairs of the Jews, 
Greeks, and Romans; and with geographical or political divis- 
ions and arrangements, which were constantly undergoing some 
change or modification. Through all these circumstances, which 
underlie Luke's narrative from commencement to end, the au- 
thor pursues his way without a single instance of contradiction 
or collision. Examples of the most unstudied harmony with 
the complicated relations of the times present themselves at 
every step. No writer who was conscious of fabricating his 
story would have hazarded such a number of minute allusions, 
since they increase so immensely the risk of detection; and 
still less, if he had ventured upon it, could he have introduced 
them so skillfully as to baffle every attempt to discover a single 
well-founded instance of ignorance or oversight. It adds to the 
force of the argument to remark, that in the pages of Luke 
every such allusion falls from him entirely without effort or 
parade. It never strikes the reader as far-fetched or con- 
trived. Every incident flows naturally out of the progress of 
the narrative. It is no exaggeration to say, that the well- 
informed reader, who will study carefully the book of the 
Acts, and compare the incidental notices to be found there 
with the geography and the political history of the times, and. 
with the customs of the different countries in which the scene 
of the transactions is laid, will receive an impression of the wri- 
ter's fidelity and accuracy, equal to that of the most forcible 
treatises on the truth of Christianity. — H. 



APPENDIX. 1 



I. 

ASSYRIAN STORY OF THE FLOOD. 

Some fifteen years ago, in excavating the site of the old pal- 
ace of Nineveh, the debris of the royal library was found there. 
History in that age was written on clay tablets, and some of 
those found here were twenty-five hundred years old. They 
were brought to England and deposited in the British Museum. 
Among those who have studied these inscriptions is Mr. George 
Smith, connected with the Museum, whom Sir Henry Rawlinson 
pronounces the greatest Assyrian scholar now living. 

Among these tablets, Mr. S.mith found some relating to the 
flood, of which three different copies exist containing duplicate 
texts, and belonging to the time of Assurbanipal, about 660 b. 
c. The original text, as appears from the tablets, must have 
belonged to the city of Erech, and have been translated into the 
Semitic Babylonian at a very early period. Some of the evi- 
dences of its antiquity are, first, the three Assyrian copies con- 
tain various readings which had crept into the text since the 
first document was written ; secondly, the Assyrian copyist did 
not know the exact literal representative of the older original 
character; and, thirdly, some sentences originally glosses have 
crept into the text of the later copy. The original composition 
is decided to be as old at least as the nineteenth century before 
the Christian era. 2 

The principal personage in these legends is Izdubar (the 
name is anagrammatic rather than personal), 3 a king who lived 

1 This Appendix has been added by the American editor. 

2 This discovery is pronounced " one of the most important and valu- 
able ever made in the province of archasology " ( The Academy, Loud m, 
April 15, 1873). 

3 Conjectured by Sir H. Rawlinson to mean <c source of fire.'' 



228 APPENDIX. 

near the time of a great deluge and belonged to Erech, now 
Warka, one of the most ancient cities of the world. The other 
cities mentioned are Babel, Surippak, and Nipur. Two of 
these, Babel and Erech, are the first two capitals of Nimrod ; 
and Nipur, according to the Talmud, is the same as Calneh 
(Gen. x. 10), another of Nimrod's cities. 

Izdubar, having conquered Belesus, a great king, and put on 
his rival's crown, and having married Ishtar, a princess of 
great beauty, became ill and began to fear death, man's great 
enemy. To escape such a fate he wandered forth in search of 
a patriarch named Sisit, whom the Babylonians supposed to 
have become immortal without having died. Izdubar hoped to 
learn from him the secret of this escape from the common lot of 
mortals. In the course of these wanderings he met a seaman 
named Urhamsi, and fitting out a vessel the two sailed along 
for a month and fifteen days till they arrived at a place near 
the mouth of the Euphrates where Sisit was supposed to dwell. 
They make known their request to him, but must converse 
across a stream which divided the immortal and the mortal 
from each other. 

The first ten tablets, which are very mutilated, contain almost 
nothing relating to this subject. -The eleventh tablet, which is 
much more complete, begins with a speech of Izdubar, who in- 
quires of Sisit how he became immortal. Sisit, in answer to 
this question, proceeds to relate the 

STORY OF THE FLOOD. 

I. 1 Izdubar after this manner said to Sisit afar off 2. Sisit. 3. 
The account do thou tell to me 4. The account do thou tell to 
me 5. to the midst to make war 6. I come up after thee 7. say 
how thou hast done it and in the circle of the gods life thou hast 
gained. 8. Sisit after this manner said to Izdubar, 9. I will 
reveal to thee, Izdubar, the concealed story, 10. and the wis- 
dom of the gods I will relate to thee. 11. The city Surippak 
the city which thou hast established .... placed 12. was an- 
cient, and the gods within it 13. dwelt, a tempest .... their 
god, the great gods 14. Anu 15. Bel 16. Ninip 17.. lord of Hades 
18. their will revealed in the midst of 19. hearing and he spoke 
to me thus 20. Surrippakite son of Ubaratutu 21. make a great 

1 The figures mark the successive lines and show whether thej' are 
more or less complete. 



APPENDIX. 229 

ship for thee 22. I will destroy the sinners and life 23. cause to 
go in the seed of life all of it to preserve them 24. the ship 
which thou shalt make 25. cubits shall be the measure cf its 
length and 26. cubits the amount of its breadth and its height 
27. Into the deep launch it. 28. I perceived and said to Hea my 
lord, 29. " Hea my lord this that thou commandest me 30. I will 
perform, it shall be done. 31. army and host 32. Hea opened 
his mouth and spake, and said to me his servant 33. thou shalt 
say unto them 34. he has turned from me and 35. fixed 

[Here there are about fifteen lines entirely lost. The absent 
passage probably described part of the building of the ark.] 

DESCRIPTION OF THE ARK. 

51. it 52. which in 53. strong .... I brought 54. on the fifth 
day .... it 55. in its circuit fourteen measures .... its sides 
56. fourteen measures it measured .... over it 57. I placed 
its roof on it .... I inclosed it 58. I rode in it, for the sixth 
time I . . . . for the seventh time 59. into the restless deep 
.... for the .... time 60. its planks the waters within it ad- 
mitted 61. 1 saw breaks and holes .... my hand placed 62. 
three measures of bitumen I poured over the outside 63. three 
measures of bitumen I poured over the inside 64. three measures 
the men carrying its baskets took .... they fixed an altar 65. 
I inclosed the altar .... the altar for an offering 66. two 
measures the altar .... Paziru the pilot 67. for ... . slaugh- 
tered oxen 68. of ... . in that day also 69. altar and grapes 
70. like the waters of a river and 71. like the day I covered and 
72. when .... covering my hand placed 73. and Shamas 
.... the material of the ship completed. 74. strong and 75. 
reeds I spread above and below. 76. went in two thirds of it. 
77. All I possessed I collected it, all I possessed I collected of 
silver. 78. all I possessed I collected of gold. 79. all I possessed 
I collected of the seed of life, the whole 80. I caused to go up 
into the ship, all my male and female servants. 81. the beasts 
of the field, the animals of the field, and the sons of the army 
all of them, I caused to go up. 

THE EARTH SWEPT BY STORM AND F£OOD. 

82. A flood Shamas made, and 83. he spake saying in the 
night, "I will cause it to rain from heaven heavily; 84. enter 
to the midst of the ship, and shut thy door." 85. A flood he 



230 APPENDIX. 

raised, and 86. he spake saying in the night, " I will cause it to 
rain from heaven heavily." 87. In the day that I celebrated his 
festival 88. the day which he had appointed; fear I had, 89. I 
entered to the midst of the ship, and shut my door 90. to guide 
the ship, to Buzursadirabl the pilot, 91. the palace I gave to his 
hand. 92. The raging of a storm in the morning 93. arose, 
from the horizon of heaven extending and wide 94. Vul in the 
midst of it thundered, and 95. Nebo and Saru went in front; 
96. the throne bearers went over mountains and plains; 97. the 
destroyer Nergal overturned; 98. Ninip went in front, and cast 
down; 99. the spirits carried destruction; 100. in their glory 
they swept the earth; 101. of Vul the flood, reached to heaven; 
102. the bright earth to a waste was turned ; 103. the surface 
of the earth, like .... it swept; 104. it destroyed all life, 
from the face of the earth. 105. the strong tempest over the 
people, reached to heaven. 108. Brother saw not his brother, it 
did not spare the people. In heaven 107. The gods feared the 
tempest, and 108. sought refuge; they ascended to the heaven of 
Anu; 109. The gods like dogs with tails hidden, couched down. 
110. Spake Ishtar a discourse 111. uttered the great goddess her 
speech 112. " The world to sin has turned, and 113. then I in 
the presence of the gods prophesied evil ; 114. when I prophe- 
sied in the presence of the gods evil, 115. to evil were devoted 
all my people, and I prophesied 116. thus, ' I have begotten 
man and let him not 117. like the sons of the fishes fill the 
sea.' " 118. The gods concerning the spirits, were weeping with 
her; 119. the gods in seats, seated in lamentation; 120. covered 
were their lips for the coming evil. 

THE STORM CALMED. 

121. Six days and nights 122. passed, the wind tempest and 
storm overwhelmed, 123. on the seventh day in its course, was 
calmed the storm and all the tempest 124. which had destroyed 
like an earthquake, 125. quieted. The sea he caused to dry, 
and the wind and tempest ended. 126. I was carried through 
the sea. The doer of evil, 127. and the whole of mankind 
who turned to sin, 128. like reeds their corpses floated. 129. 
I opened the window and the light broke in, over my refuge 
130. it passed, I sat still and 131. over my refuge came peace. 
132. 1 was carried over the shore, at the boundary of the sea, 
133. for twelve measures it ascended over the land. 134. To the 



APPENDIX. 231 

country of Nizir, went the ship; 135. the mountains of Nizir 
stopped the ship, and to pass over it, it was not able. 136. The 
first day and the second day, the mountain of Nizir the same. 
137. The third day and the fourth day, the mountain of Nizir 
the same. 138. The fifth and sixth, the mountain of Nizir the 
same. 

A DOVE FROM THE ARK. 

139. On the seventh day in the course of it 140. I sent forth a 
dove and it left. The dove went and searched, and 141. a rest- 
ing place it did not find, and it returned. 142. I sent forth a 
swallow and it left. The swallow went and searched, and 143 
a resting place it did not find, and it returned. 144. I sent forth 
a raven, and it left. 145. The raven went, and the corpses on 
the waters it saw, and 146. it did eat, it swam, and wandered 
away, and did not return. 147. I sent the animals forth to the 
four winds. I poured out a libation. 148. I built an altar on 
the peak of the mountain, 149. by seven herbs I cut, 150. at 
the bottom of them, I placed reeds, pines, and simgar. 151. 
The gods collected at its burning, the gods collected at its good 
burning, 152. the gods like sumbe over the sacrifice gathered. 
153. From of old also, the great God in his course, 154. the great 
brightness of Anu had created; when the glory 155. of these 
gods, as of Ukni stone, on my countenance I could not endure; 
156. in those days I prayed that forever I might not endure. 

THE GOD OF THE TEMPEST. 

157. May the gods come to my altar; 158. ma}' Bel not come to 
my altar 159. for he did not consider and had made a tempest, 
160. and my people he had consigned to the deep 161. from of 
old, also Bel in his course 162. saw the ship, and went Bel with 
anger filled to the gods and spirits ; 163. let not any one come 
out alive, let not a man be saved from the deep. 164. Ninip his 
mouth opened and spake, and said to the warrior Bel, 165. 
" Who then will be saved? " Hea the words understood, 166. 
and Hea knew all things, 167. Hea his mouth opened and 
spake, and said to the warrior Bel, 168. "Thou prince of the 
gods, warrior, 169. when thou wast angry a tempest thou 
madest, 170. the doer of sin did his sin, the doer .of evil did his 
evil, 171. may the exalted not be broken, may the captive not 
be delivered; 172. instead of thee making a tempest, may lions 
increase and men be reduced; 173. instead of thee making a 



232 APPENDIX. 

tempest, may leopards increase and men be reduced; 174. in- 
stead of thee making a tempest, ma} r a famine happen, and the 
country be destroyed; 175. instead of thee making a tempest, 
may pestilence increase, and men be destroyed." 176. I did 
not peer into the wisdom of the gods, 177. reverent and atten- 
tive a dream they sent, and the wisdom of the gods he heard. 

THE COUNTRY PURIFIED. 

178. When his judgment was accomplished, Bel went up to 
the midst of the ship, 179. he took my hand and brought me 
out, me 1 80. he brought out, he caused to bring my wife to my 
side, 181. he purified the country, he established in a covenant, 
and took the people 182. in the presence of Sisit and the people; 
183. when Sisit and his wife and the people to be like the gods 
were carried away, 184. then dwelt Sisit in a remote place at 
the mouth of the river; 185. they took me and in a remote 
place at the mouth of the rivers they seated me, 186. when to 
thee whom the gods have chosen, thee and 187. the life which 
thou hast sought, after thou shalt gain 188. this do for six days 
and seven nights 189. like I say also, in bonds bind him 190. the 
way like a storm shall be laid upon him. 191. Sisit after this 
manner said to his wife 192. I announce that the chief who 
grasps at life 193. the way like a storm shall be laid upon him; 
194. his wife after this manner, said to Sisit afar off 195. purify 
him and let the man be sent away 196. the road that he came, 
may he return in peace, 197. the great gate open, and may he 
return to his country. 198. Sisit after this manner, said to his 
wife, 199. the cry of a man alarms thee, 200. this do, his scarlet 
cloth place on his head, 201. and the day when he ascended the 
side of the ship 202. she did, his scarlet cloth she placed on 
his head, 203. and the day when he ascended on the side of 
the ship. 

The lines that follow next are very obscure. The close of the 
Tablet reads as follows: — 

242. Izdubar and Urhamsi rode in the boat 243. where they 
placed them they rode. 244. His wife after this manner said to 
Sisit afar off 245. Izdubar goes away, is satisfied, performs 246. 
that which thou hast given him and returns to his country 247. 
and he heard and after Izdubar, 248. he went to the shore 249. 
Sisit after this manner said to Izdubar 250. Izdubar thou goest 
away, thou art satisfied, thou performest 251. that which I have 



APPENDIX. 233 

given thee and thou returnest to thy country 252. I have re- 
vealed to thee Izdubar the concealed story. 

The original or cuneiform names are mostly written in mono- 
gram, and therefore difficult to represent in English. The 
cuneiform account, says Mr. Smith, like the Biblical account, 
describes the deluge as a punishment on men for their sins. 
The Greek account of Berosus says nothing of that occasion of 
the flood. The dimensions of the ark are unfortunately lost by 
a fracture which makes the figures illegible. In both cases (see 
Gen. vi. 19 ff.) animals are taken into the ark for the perpetua- 
tion of the species. The duration of the flood is shorter in the 
legend than in the Bible account (Gen. vii. 11, ff.); for the in- 
scription states that the flood abated on the seventh day, and that 
the ship remained seven days on the mount before sending out 
the birds. The accounts differ as to the mount on which the ark 
rested; but agree as to the building of the altar and the sacrifice 
on leaving the ark. Our interpreter suggests that the Babylo- 
nian account may combine two distinct and older traditions; 
and further that the Mosaic account appears to be that of an 
inland people while the Babylonian account appears to be that 
of a maritime people. 1 



II. 

THE MOABITE STONE. 

Its Discovery. 



This monument which has awakened so much interest among 
scholars and in the public mind generally, was discovered in 
1868 by Rev. F. Klein of the Church Missionary Society in 
Jerusalem. It was found at Dhiban, the Biblical Dibon (Num. 
xxi. 30; Is. xv. 2, etc.), on the east of the Jordan in the ancient 
territory of the Moabites. It is a region remote from the ordi- 
nary route of travellers, and but little known to foreigners. The 
stone was lying on the ground with the inscription uppermost, 
measuring about three feet nine inches long, two feet four 

1 Maturer study may modify some of the readings or conclusions from 
them, but are not likely to vary very much the results 



234 APPENDIX. 

inches in breadth, and one foot two inches thick. Through the 
efforts mainly of Captain Warren, and of the French vice-consul 
at Jerusalem, M. Ganneau, an impression (or squeeze so called) 
was taken of the main block and of certain recovered parts 
which had been broken off by the Arabs. 

Mr. Deutsch of the British Museum, decides that the charac- 
ters of this stone are older than many of the Assyrian bi-lingual 
cylinders Avhich are as old at least as the ninth century b. c. 
No word occurs in the language of this inscription of which the 
root does not exist in the Hebrew Bible. It reads in this 
respect M. de Vogue remarks, like a page from the Hebrew 
Scriptures. The form of the letters is the oldest known to 
any written language. The Pentateuch was no doubt written 
in such letters in the time of Moses, and Solomon and Hiram 
corresponded with each other in such characters. (See Jos. 
Ant. xii. 9, § 1.) 

Among the various translations of this document (we have 
them from Ganneau and Derenbourg in French; Noeldeke, 
Haug, and Schlottmann in German, and Neubauer, Ginsburg, 
and others in English), that of Dr. Ginsburg is the best for 
English readers. We insert it here with figures showing the 
order of the lines as arranged on the stone, some of them being 
incomplete or illegible. 1 

TRANSLATION. 

1. I Mesha am son of Chemoshgad King of Moab, the 2. 
Dibonite. My father reigned over Moab thirty years, and I 
reigned 3. after my father. And I erected this Stone to Che- 
mosh at Karcha [a stone of] 4. [Sajlvation, for he saved me 
from all despoilers and let me see my desire upon all my ene- 
mies. 5. and Om[r]i, King of Israel, who oppressed Moab 
many days, for Chemosh was angry with his 6. [la]nd. His 
son succeeded him, and he also said, I will oppress Moab. In 
my days he said, [let us go] 7. and I will see my desire on him 
and his house, and Israel said, I shall destroy it forever. Now 
Omri took the land 8. Medeba and occupied it [he and his son 

1 The Moabite Stone; a Facsimile of the Inscription, etc. (Lond. 
1870, pp. 1-45). It contains also the other translations referred to 
abOTe and is illustrated by valuable notes. The translations of Prof 
Schlottmann and of M. de Vogue will be found in The Recovery of Jeru- 
salem, pp. 396-399 (1871). 



APPENDIX. 235 

and his son's] son. forty years. And Chemosh [had mercy] 9. 
on it in my days; and I built Baal Meon, and made therein 
the ditch and I [built] 10. Kirjathaim, for the men of Gad 
dwelled in the land [Atar]oth from of old, and the K[ing of 
I]srael fortified 11. A[t]aroth, and I assaulted the wall and cap- 
tured it, and killed all the wa[rriors of] 12. the wall, for the 
well pleasing of Chemosh and Moab, and I removed from it 
all the spoil, and [of 13. fered] it before Chemosh in Kirjath, 
and I placed therein the men of Siran and the me[n of Zereth] 
14. Shachar. And Chemosh said to me, Go take Nebo against 
Israel. [And I] 15. went in the night, and I fought against it 
from the break of dawn till noon, and I took 16. it, and slew in 
all seven thousand [men], but I did not kill the women 17. and 
[ma]idens, for [I] devoted [them] to Ashtar-Chemosh ; and I 
took, from it 18. [the ves]sels of Jehovah and offered them be- 
fore Chemosh. And the King of Israel fortif [ied] 19. Jahaz, 
and occupied it, when he made war against me ; and Chemosh 
drove him out before [me and] 20. I took from Moab two hun- 
dred men, all chiefs, and fought against Jahaz, and took it, 21. 
in addition to Dibon. I built Karcha, the wall of the forest, 
and the wall 22. of the city, and I built the gates thereof, and I 
built the towers thereof, and I 23. built the palace, and I made 
the prisons for the men of ... . with [in the] 24> wall. And 
there was no cistern within the wall in Karcha, and I said to all 
the people, Make for yourselves 25. every man a cistern in his 
house. And I dug the ditch for Karcha with the [chosen] men 
of 26. [Is]rael. I built Aroer and I made the road across the 
Arnon, 27. I built Beth-Bamoth, for it was destroyed; I built 
Bezer, for it was cu[t down] 28. by the fifty m[en] of Dibon, 
for all Dibon was now loyal; and I sav[ed] 29. [from my ene- 
mies] Bikran, which I added to my land, and I bui[lt] 30. 
[Beth-Gamul], and Beth-Diblathaim, and Beth-Baal-Meon. and 
I placed there the Mo[abites] 31. [to take possession of] the 
land. And Horonaim dwelt therein .... 32. And Chemosh 
said to me, Go down, make war against Horonaim, and ta[ke 
it] ... . 33. Chemosh in my days 34. year and I . . . . 

COMMENTARY. 

The tablet thus translated is a commemorative record of the 
successes of Mesha, king of Moab, against the Israelites during a 
reign of forty years or more from about b. c. 925. Nearly two 



236 APPENDIX. 

thirds of the inscription relate to the deliverance of his land, in 
the latter part of his reign, from its vassalage to the dynasty of 
Omri. Hitherto, we have known very little concerning the re- 
lations between Moab and the Israelites during a period of 
nearly eighty years between the merciless subjugation of the 
Moabites by David (2 Sam. viii. 2, 11, 12; 1 Chr. xviii. 2, 
11) and the notice of the revolt after the death of Ahab (2 K. 
i. 1; xiii. 5 sq.). 

From the stone it would appear that Moab's subjection had 
not lasted during this whole period, but had ceased perhaps in 
the time of Solomon and had been reimposed by Omri who 
had made himself sovereign of the northern kingdom (b. c. 
935). This tributary connection lasted through the greater part 
of Omri's dynasty, i. e. during the forty years of the stone, 
but came to an end under Jehoram who though aided by the 
kings of Judah and Edom and at times remarkably successful, 
was unable to quell .the rebellion of the Edomite Mesha. This 
failure of the Israelite king seems to be obscurely admitted in 
2 K. iii. 27. This deliverance of Moab and the subsequent 
public enterprises of Mesha which the stone records prepared 
the way for that long career of prosperity which contemporary 
and later Hebrew prophets recognize as enjoyed by them. (See 
Is. xv., xvi.; Jer. xlviii. ; Dan. xi. 41; Am. ii. 1, 2.) 

The following proper names are found both on the monument 
and in the Hebrew Scriptures: Mesha, Moab, Chamos or 
Chemos (national god of the Moabites), Omri, Kirjath, Israel, 
Medeba, Jahveh or Jehovah, Boroz or Bozreh, Kirjathaim, Gad, 
Ataroth, Sereth or Seban( V), Nebo, Ashtor, or Shemosh, David, 
Jatar, Dibon, Aroer, Arnon, Beth-Bamoth or Bamoth Bezer, 
Gamul, Beth-Diblathaim, and conjecturally some others. 

These names both of persons and places common to the stone 
and the Hebrew history supplement and illustrate the two 
records, and show at the same time their independence of each 
other by the slight variations and obscurities which they reveal. 

We may add further that the discovery of this stone confirms 
the passages of Scripture (1 Sam. vii. 12; xv. 12, and 2 Sam. 
viii. 13) 1 which imply that the Hebrews, like the Egyptians and 

i In two of the passages the A. V. does not suggest the right mean- 
ing. In 1 Sam. xv. 12, it should be, " Set up a pillar or trophy, in- 
stead of ' place ' " (see F'urst, He.br. Lex. p. 539) ; and in 2 Sam. viii. 13, 
it should be "Set up a name, or monument," and not "gat him a 



APPENDIX. 237 

Assyrians, erected stones for commemorative purposes. 1 It en- 
courages the hope that by perseverance, other similar discoveries 
may be made; it justifies the attempts made at the present 
time, by the Exploration Societies of England and of this coun- 
try, to rescue as soon as possible from Arab violence and the 
ravages of time any similar monuments of sacred interest (and 
such undoubtedly there are) in the lands of the Bible. 2 

name." In 1 Sam. vii. 12, the monumental stone " Ebenezer " (stone 
of kelp), was Samuel's recognition of Jehovah's interposition for him 
which he would perpetuate to all time. 

1 On the palaeographic value of this inscription the reader may see 
Prof. G. Rawlinson, on "the Moabite Stone" (Contemporary Review, 
Aug. 1870, London), and Rev. W. Ward under "Writing" in Smith's 
Bibl. Diet. iv. p. 3577 ff. (Amer. ed.), and Bibl. Sacr. art. hi. Oct. 1870. 

2 Our Work in Palestine (published by the Exploration Fund, Lond. 
1872 and New York, 1873), states what their labors there have already 
accomplished, and what their plans and hopes are for the future. 



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